Song Remains the Same
by River Winters
Summary: For Alex Winchester, life was never easy. Mute since the nursery fire, hunting the undead with her brothers... normal was never in the equation. When her voice is inexplicably restored and the angel Castiel appears and claims to be her guardian, Alex isn't sure if he's even trustworthy, but she can't seem to get rid of him, either. AU, sisfic, Cas/OC. Set 3x15 and onward.
1. Born to Run

**Song Remains the Same**_  
_by River Winters  
- Co-written by Jess Q. -

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**Author's Notes:** Welcome! If you're like me you like to know what you're getting into at the beginning of a fanfic. This story begins right at the end of season three and stays fairly close to canon, while including my AU addition of Alex Winchester—Dean and Sam's younger sister (Sam's twin). Even though the story focuses on Alex as the protagonist and Castiel as the secondary protagonist, there is plenty of Sam/Dean/John stuff as well (in further chapters especially). As the story unfolds, more and more details change because of Alex's presence. The story includes a slowly building relationship/romance between Cas and Alex (I have entitled this ship Calex!). If you hate Mary Sues, you are in good company and won't find one here (though at first you may wonder, because there are a lot of unanswered questions about Alex but please rest assured... I reveal the answers gradually as I build the story and as more is revealed about Al's character, background, etc). I would say the story really gets off the ground and running around chapter four and gets _freaking insane_ around chapter twenty.

**Rating:** Rated M — for violence, some colorful language and some sexual content/darker subject material in later chapters.  
**Disclaimer:** Supernatural and all of the characters therein do not belong to me.  
**Spoilers/Warnings:** Spoilers for all seasons. Set 3x15 and onward but does include flashbacks into previous seasons. Story includes family drama - overprotective Dean - Sam and Alex always at odds - Alex working to overcome a complicated and painful past - an angel named Castiel who somehow gets in the middle of the mess that is the Winchesters' lives - Cas learning how to deal with emotions and feelings - slow romantic build between Cas and Alex - some dark subject material in later chapters - and very LONG chapters as the story progresses. Strap in for the long haul because I have this story planned through season nine!  
**Special thanks:** This story would not be possible without Jess who is a goddess and has helped me edit, brainstorm, and write this story. Seriously Jess, without you, I couldn't do this! I love you forever and ever for everything. Thank you.

Readers, I hope you enjoy the story that follows. Please read and review; I love to hear from you. And now, onto the story…

PS: go check out **alexwinchester dot com **and you can see pictures of Alex as I envision her, gifsets, general Calex shipping mania, as well as other stuff from the fic. It does contain some spoilers for the story though, so please be forewarned. Cheers & happy reading!

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**Song Remains The Same**  
Chapter 1 / Born to Run

_"We face the path of time... and yet I fight."_  
- Alice in Chains

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_Every story has a marked beginning. Mine begins thousands of years ago, at the dawn of time itself. I was created, not born; created to be a warrior and messenger of God. My task was to watch over God's children, to carry out the purposes of my father; a father I never knew but always believed in. I was obedient, I was faithful, I never questioned my role or my father. Not until them. A little broken family of three seemingly small and insignificant human beings: two brothers and their sister. This is where my story changes. For the better or worse, I'm not entirely sure._

_The Winchesters taught me about free will and choice, two things that were once foreign concepts to a being like me, an angel of the Lord. I was drawn to this idea of being free to make my own choices, of choosing my own fate—but now I realize freedom is a great and terrible burden. If I knew then what I know now, perhaps I would choose a different path. Perhaps I would take it all back. _

_If you told me three years ago that I would be in the dilemma I am in now, I doubt I would have believed you. At that time, I wouldn't have fathomed that I would be capable of the things I so clearly feel today: remorse, agony, pain... love. It's difficult to reconcile who I was with who I've become. I'm not sure that I like who I am, honestly._

_The centuries I lived through, the wars I saw waged, the rise and fall of kingdoms I've observed... none of it prepared me for being put into the body of a human man, being thrust into the midst of emotions and feelings and the responsibility of being completely in charge of my own actions. Even after watching humans century after century, I had no idea how to be anything like one. Not at first. _

_I've tried to make the right choices. I've tried to protect these fleeting and fragile human beings who have become so important to me—especially her, always her—but perhaps I've failed. I think I have._

_And of all the people I've failed, I've failed her the most._

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**- Three Years Ago -**

**Just Outside of Erie, Pennsylvania**

The familiar growl of the Impala's engines paired with crackling Van Halen on the radio faded up in volume as Alex slowly woke from another snatched few hours of sleep. She wasn't sure why she'd gone to sleep at all—just like she'd thought, there had been the normal assortment of nightmares. Awkwardly crammed into the back seat with only her arm as a pillow, she stiffly sat up and, grimacing, tried to knead some soreness out of her stiff shoulder muscle. _Ouch_. _Dammit_. Between kicking ass, getting her ass kicked, sleeping on crappy motel mattresses or in the car, she couldn't remember ever _not_ feeling sore. She gave up on the shoulder, squinted into the bright light streaming through the car's windshield. The sun was low in the sky—sunrise?—and it shone directly into her heavy-lidded eyes. In the front seat with one hand on the wheel and dark shades on, her oldest brother Dean acknowledged her with a slight turn of the head.

"Morning sunshine," he said, his familiar gravelly voice bordering on sarcastic or humorous. She couldn't tell.

Alex mumbled back a halfass greeting, trying to force herself into consciousness—it wasn't easy, as her body was desperate for more rest. Being exhausted all the time kind of came with the job title of hunter and she knew that... but she didn't have to like it. Soon, _somehow_, she promised herself, she would sleep more than three or four hours at a time. Alex glanced at Sam, who was at the moment snoring softly, his giant head lolling onto his shoulder in the front seat—the dude could sleep through a hurricane. _Lucky_.

The car slowed, rolling to a stop at a dingy gas station. Dean punched his sleeping brother in the shoulder, who started from sleep and said something like "_huh, wha_!?" to Dean's clear amusement. "Enough with the shut eye, Sammy. Rise and shine!" Dean got out of the car and began fueling it up, leaving his two sleepy siblings to themselves. Sam turned around, his slightly confused just-woke-up expression mirroring how Alex was feeling at the moment. "Hey," he mumbled, and looked at her for only two more seconds before asking "nightmares again?" Her eyes flicked up to him. He always saw through her like that—maybe it was part of being twins. Maybe it was because he had nightmares, too.

"Uh, a few," she replied with a forced shrug, downplaying it. "It's no big deal."

Sam didn't look like he bought her attempt at casual indifference and Alex looked away from him, tried not to remember the dreams of yellow eyes, crunching bones, a dark world where she was stuck in chains, horrible clawed hands dragging Dean away to his death... she shivered a little, suddenly wide awake and somber, once again remembering the reality they'd been running from for the past eleven months. The reality of Dean's quickly closing in death. Her voice went quiet and she felt herself glaze over, staring into space. "Dean's time is almost up, Sam," she said, her voice barely audible.

Sam went blank at her words, then his jaw tensed and he was quiet for a couple heavy beats. "We… we still have some time," he muttered, distracted. He turned away. "I, uh, need coffee." And just like that, he exited the car, heading in his trademark long stride toward the convenience store. Alex stared after him silently, not sure if she should be pissed or sad or what. After all, what could Sam have said to make it better? No words could change what was coming.

Ever since Dean had made the crossroads deal to bring Sam back from the dead, they had lived it up wild and free, Dean style—basically doing whatever the hell Dean wanted in between jobs. There had been a lot of booze, women, and bad burger joints in between the hunts they found. But the Winchesters had never really talked about the approaching day that they all knew was coming: the day Dean would have to make good on his deal. Dean refused to talk about finding a way out of it, said that if he so much as tried to get out of the deal, Sam would die again. Still, Sam and her? They'd been trying to figure out a way. Sam was beginning to avoid the subject matter completely when she reminded him of the coming day. Like he had given up or something but couldn't face the subject at all, had to ignore it.

Dean had avoiding reality down to a science by now... he'd always been like that though. He'd never been able to stand sitting around, instead he preferred to always be moving forward. Moving, _doing_ gave him something to focus on besides the crazy crap the three of them lived through and called their life. Right now was actually a good example of Dean's penchant for not wanting to give a single thought to his future—they were on the way to investigate a possible zombie outbreak. And Dean was literally days away from being brutally murdered by Hellhounds. To Alex, it was really beginning to feel _too late_, and whenever she actually thought about it, she was overwhelmed with the worst fear and panic she'd ever known. So she tried _not_ to think about it.

She glanced out at Dean who was bobbing his head along to the music playing in the car as he gassed up the Impala. He was off in his own little world, and she wondered how he could be so relaxed and _fine_ about everything. And she wanted so bad to just go out there and shake him and demand for him to _do something please!_ about what was about to happen. But if you tried to talk to Dean about what was coming in just a handful of days—you'd better prepare to be bitch slapped verbally.

Alex slid out of the backseat and headed into the store, needing the bathroom, needing to get out of the damn backseat for a few minutes. It was cold outside even though it was April. Her breath made little puffs of water vapor as it hit the air, her worn out combat boots crunched against frost on the cracked pavement. She wrapped her arms around herself, deep in thought. She wondered about how other families might deal with what hers was having to face. How did normal people handle _knowing _that they were losing someone? What did functioning families do when a loved one had a certain amount of time to live? But of course, the Winchester family was anything but functional. They barely held it together as it was.

The gas station restroom was a dank little tiled room with a pathetic, cracked toilet and a foggy, water damaged mirror. Seeing herself in that mirror for what might have been the first time in days, Alex was taken aback. She looked so tired and harrowed, old, beaten down. Her hair was completely bedraggled—her tank top had some kind of stain on it near her hip—did that happen when they tortured that demon last night for information? Alex yanked a few fingers through her hair, trying to tame the long brown mess—it didn't really work and she gave up. She had thought of cutting it all off before, but never gone through with it. She glanced at her face again in the mirror, wondering if the dark circles were temporary or permanent—had they always been that dark and pronounced? She couldn't remember.

Alex pulled her jacket around her closer to cover the stain and shoved her hands into the pockets as she exited the restroom. Outside, through the glass door of the gas station, she saw Dean and Sam leaning against the Impala. She felt a stab of pain, unintentionally letting herself fear for the day when Dean was no longer there. He'd always been there, _always_. How the hell was she supposed to live without him? An agonized feeling in her chest and throat came at the thought and she shut it down, refusing to grieve yet. Dean was still here, and they had work to do. And they could save him somehow. They _had to_. She walked out of the gas station, stone-faced, trying to look like she was okay. Sam smiled one of his half-smiles at her and held up a cup of coffee in her direction. Alex accepted it when she reached them, cupped it in her hands for warmth, giving it a sniff through the little hole where you were supposed to sip. Gas station coffee was always so hit or miss. This particular brew had the aroma of burnt rubber. She wrinkled her nose. She'd drink it anyway.

The Winchesters hit the road again, Dean doling out the plan for the day—get a motel room, suit up as feds. The brothers would go to the morgue to see what they could find out while Alex went to the hospital and interviewed the victim of the strange 'kidney-napping' as Dean put it.

"Make sure you remember to find the nurses or doctors who treated the guy and ask them all about what they saw, if there was anything weird or—" Dean was saying to Alex, but she cut in. "Dean, I know I'm new at the whole interviewing thing, but I've got this. I've done it before, I've watched you do it a million times... I know what to do." She gave him a pointed look and somewhat annoyed expression, and her older brother conceded, if a little reluctantly and with a little attitude.

"Yeah, _yeah_," he muttered gruffly. "I know it's been a few months, but I can't get used to it. The whole you-having-a-voice-thing."

Alex's eyes snapped up to the rearview mirror, where Dean was looking at her with watchful, narrowed eyes. She looked away. "Me either," Alex murmured, her mind turning to the many questions she had about _that_. She could feel Dean still watching her in the rearview, but she avoided looking back at him. Dean and Sam shared a significant glance. Dean frowned and shook his head. Unsolved mystery number one: how Alex had suddenly and inexplicably gotten her voice back after twenty five and a half years of her life.

Dean remembered Alex had been a normal baby until _that_ night—the twins' six month birthday. Up until then, she had cried, babbled, and screamed like all babies did. But after the fire, after Mom died... nothing. It was like her vocal chords had just quit working. Doctors couldn't make sense of it and after a few years, they had just accepted the fact that little Alex would never speak.

The silent one, volume zero, freak. At every new school, she would earn cruel nickname after cruel nickname. Her inability to speak or make any sort of sound made her a target for bullying and estrangement by her peers. Sam agonized over it, Dad had blamed himself, and Alex cried silent tears when she thought no one was looking. And Dean—well Dean had always taken it hard. Real hard.

As they currently sped toward their destination, Dean's mind wandered into an old memory. Sam and Alex must have been about twelve at the time. He remembered it like it had been just a few days ago...

_Dean came in alone into the motel room with canned chicken and some instant noodles—the fixings for what would be their dinner for the night. Dad was not there, as per usual. Sam was sitting on the bed with Alex, his arm around her, his face twisted in concern. Sniffing and breathing heavily, Alex was in tears._

"_What happened?" Dean demanded, throwing down the groceries on the motel table and going over to where his siblings sat. _

"_The kids at school were making fun of her again," Sam said angrily, clearly frustrated that his twin was hurting and he couldn't do anything._

_Dean sat on the bed on the other side of Alex and put an arm around her. "Hey, chin up kiddo. Don't listen to those losers."_

_Alex bent and scrawled in her little worn out notebook—she took one with her everywhere and wrote in it countless times a day to communicate. None of them knew sign language. Dad hadn't wanted Alex to learn it because he was going to 'fix her' soon, just you wait and see. Well, Dean was tired of waiting. And he knew Alex was too.  
_

**They said I'm weird and a freak.**

_Dean felt a familiar righteous anger thump in his heart as he looked down at his kid sister. If he could get his hands on those freakin' bullies... but he needed to focus on calming Alex down now. He squeezed her shoulder gently. _"_Well, you're _not_ a freak or weird. You're awesome, okay? You could kick any of their asses from here to Tuesday. Do any of those punks know how to gank a vamp? Or hunt a werewolf? Have any of them ever helped their dad research how to finish off a wraith?"_

_Alex shrugged miserably, sniffing and another fat tear rolled down her cheek as she quickly wrote something else._

**I'll never have friends :'''(**

_Dean tried to keep his voice upbeat, even though the frowny face with multiple tear drops just about did him in. "Sure you will, sweetheart. And no matter if you have friends or not, you'll always have me and Sam, okay?" Dean soothed, patting her roughly on the back. "It's gonna be okay. Now you and Sammy need to help me make dinner. No being down in the dumps allowed."_

_She nodded halfheartedly, giving the 'okay' hand symbol._

How many times had they had that same exact conversation? Dean wearily thought of how many hard, lonely nights he had helped his brother and sister through. Alex's muteness had caused her to become an outcast, and Sam was picked on too for varying reasons. Neither of the twins had made many friends, actually. Alex and Sam had been joined at the hip, pretty much, until the high school years, which is when things had gotten a little less cozy in the family. Sam had tried harder to be quote unquote 'normal' and Alex hadn't been into that at all. And then when Sam decided to go off to college... she'd taken that really hard and personal. Things had never been the same between any of them since. The whole college thing, in Dean's opinion, had royally screwed the Winchester family. He was still pissed about it, honestly.

He'd always felt very protective over both of his siblings, but especially over Alex because he saw her as being really vulnerable. Yeah, she was a good hunter and Dad had raised her just like him and Sam: to be capable and resourceful, strong and smart—but up until her unexplained healing a few months ago, Dean hadn't ever wanted to let her out of his sight. Too much risk out there. He feared she would end up trapped somewhere or hurt badly—unable to even make a sound or call for help. Dean had always held out hope they would find some voodoo, some spell, some_ something _to get Alex her voice back. Because she'd always been so unhappy, so lonely, so off to herself, so undeserving of the crap fate had dealt her. Sometimes her frustration and anger came out, mostly in her teen years, in random and unexpected bursts of violence or acts of aggression. She'd broken stuff in motel rooms, gotten in fights at school, Dean had caught her spray painting school property before.

But see, he couldn't be too mad at her. He got it, he did. She felt weird and freakish and was mad at the world. But more than mad, she was alone and lonely. Even if she were in a room full of people, she was alone, off to herself, in the corner or sitting, watching, quiet whether she wanted to be or not. Dean had always felt responsible for trying to make her feel normal, at least a little bit. He wasn't sure it had ever worked though. Then again, were any of the Winchester family normal? Dean's mind again wandered into his memories, this time a more recent one.

_It was 2005 and Dean and Alex had just reunited with Sam a couple weeks ago after Dad went missing. The sibling dynamic was off, period, maybe because they'd been apart for years, maybe because Sam was mourning the death of Jessica, maybe because Alex was kind of withdrawn and weird with her twin suddenly back in the picture. Either way, Dean was a little extra pissy because nothing was going according to plan and because Dad was proving impossible to find. _

_They'd stopped in Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin, to investigate a series of suspicious drownings. The deaths had been ruled accidental, but Dean hadn't been so sure. They'd found the wife and son of one of the most recent drowning victims. This kid named Lucas had seen his dad drown—had been stuck out there, floating in the cold water all alone for hours—and he hadn't spoken a word since. The second Dean had learned that this kid had gone mute after watching a parent die, he'd been deeply affected and empathetic. After all, that's pretty much exactly what had happened to his little sister. _

_At a local park, Dean had tracked down Lucas's mom for the second time to talk to her. He wanted to talk to Lucas some more, see what the kid had seen when his dad drowned. Morbid stuff, but someone had to do it. Lucas was off by himself at the park, so Dean and Alex had gone over to try and see if they could get him to talk. Sam hung back with the mom. Lucas was sitting alone, bent over a park bench coloring. "Follow my lead," Dean said, maybe a little unnecessarily to Alex, who gave him a semi-amused look that clearly said 'I always do, don't I?' _

_Yeah. She did. _

"_How's it going?" Dean asked Lucas as they approached, then crouched down across from the kid. Alex knelt at the end of the bench, folded her arms over the wooden slats. The little boy didn't acknowledge either of them, just kept coloring. He had colored construction paper stacked next to him and some untouched plastic army men scattered across the bench, too. Dean and Alex exchanged a glance, Alex shrugged almost imperceptibly, and Dean picked up a toy soldier. _

"_Oh, I used to _love_ these things," Dean said conversationally, and swung the little plastic piece around making cheesy gun and explosion sounds. Alex shook her head, hid a smile. Lucas kept coloring, ignoring them, and Dean tried again. "So crayons more your thing?" Dean asked, watching Lucas carefully. "That's cool. Chicks dig artists." _

_Alex had picked up the drawing on top of the little pile of drawings Lucas had next to himself. She looked at it thoughtfully—the drawing was of a big black swirl. Dean glanced between Alex and Lucas, struck by the fact that this kid Lucas reminded him painfully of his sister in a way that surprised him. Lucas had to be five or six, and Alex was twenty-two, but they had the exact same sad, alone, haunted eyes. They had the same lonely-in-a-world-full-of-people kind of slouch to their shoulders. _

_Dean caught himself in his thoughts and refocused, soldiered on—this was no time to get all jacked up on sad feelings. He flipped through Lucas's drawings. "Hey, these are pretty good," he said, looking at the one of a red bicycle. He got an idea, glanced at Lucas. "You mind if I sit and draw with you for awhile?"_

_No response from Lucas. "I'm not so bad myself," Dean commented, going ahead and picking up the stack of paper and a crayon, standing up. Alex had her hands together and under her chin and she watched silently, mostly observing Lucas, but looking at Dean from time to time. Dean glanced at her briefly as he sat down on the empty end of the bench, then addressed Lucas again. _

"_You know Lucas, I'm thinking you can hear me, you just don't want to talk. I don't know exactly what happened to your dad, but I know it was something real bad." He glanced at Lucas, who was still unresponsive. "I think I know how you feel. When I was your age, I… I saw something." He paused, stopped drawing for a second, grew deeply thoughtful and pensive, thinking of what he remembered about that fateful night: flashes of fire down the hallway, Dad shouting, the roar of the flames, baby Sam wailing, Alex wide eyed and screaming and silent. Dean had run outside, stared up at the window of the nursery from outside as he clutched the twins just barely—they had been so heavy in his arms. He hadn't understood what was happening, not at first. Their nursery window was lit up soft orange by the fire—how could Dean have guessed that Mom was burning alive just beyond those panes of glass?_

_Sobering a good deal, Dean took a deep breath, glanced at Alex, who was watching Lucas draw. Sometimes Dean wondered if she remembered anything. She'd just been a baby, after all. _

"_Anyway," Dean looked at Lucas, gathering himself and forcing his mind out of the dark places. "My sister Alex here? She doesn't talk cuz of what happened. Just like you. She saw something so bad that it just… made her voice go poof, I guess." Alex's jaw had tightened a little at the subject matter, but she just stared down at the bench neutrally, took a deep breath. However, Lucas did stop drawing a second, glanced Alex's way, before returning to his scribbles. _

"_Listen," Dean said to the kid. "We understand and we wanna help." He returned to drawing as he talked. "Maybe you don't think anyone will listen to you, or, or believe you. I want you to know that I will. You don't even have to say anything." Alex peeked up at Dean from underneath her lashes and he attempted to give her a little smile. He was used to these one-sided conversations after a lifetime with her. And she knew it, too. _

"_You could draw me a picture about what you saw that day, with your dad, on the lake," Dean suggested, refocusing on Lucas. When he got no response, he nodded. It had been worth a shot. "Okay, no problem. This is for you." Dean held out the stick-figure drawing he'd done. "This is my family." He pointed to each stick figure individually. "That's my dad. That's my mom. That's my geek brother—" he smirked, glanced Sam's way, "my kid sister—and that's me." A pause, and Lucas still said nothing, just colored his little rocket ship drawing, off in his own little world. Dean gave up, but kept his voice friendly and calm. "All right, so I'm a sucky artist." He stood, put the drawing down where he'd been sitting. "I'll see you around, Lucas."_

_Dean started to walk off but when Alex stayed put, and he stopped, looked at her, waited—but she shook her head slightly, motioned for him to go on and go. He hung back, but watched, curious. Lucas came out of his fog, picked up the drawing Dean had left, stared at it curiously, then looked at Alex and then back to the picture, then back at her again. He was scrutinizing her kind of suspiciously. She smiled just a little—she had a way of smiling really hesitantly, sort of grimacing, holding her mouth in a stiff line and testing the waters before really smiling for real—but today she smiled for real, right away at the little kid as she tapped the stick figure on the sheet that symbolized her. She then tapped herself. Lucas looked at her a long time, trying to decide something maybe. Alex took a piece of paper, a crayon, wrote something down, held it out in front of herself for him to read. __**I see you.**_

_Lucas tilted his head to the side just slightly, thoughtfully, then reached out and accepted it from her. Dean watched with increasing interest… usually Alex was a total disaster with kids—she just didn't know what to do with them and they didn't know what to do with her—kids liked loud people, entertaining people. Alex was easy to miss if you weren't looking for her. Maybe that's why Lucas seemed kind of fascinated by her, because he wasn't a typical kid. He had taken out his own his own blank piece of paper and was writing on it. Lucas handed it to her and Dean could just make out the words __**I see you too.**_

_Alex read it, took it, raised her eyebrows and tilted her head, her eyes flickering over Lucas's face. She smiled a little then, and the kid's chin moved up, he looked at Alex thoroughly. Dean swore the two of them were having an entire conversation that only they could understand. _

_And then __Lucas got out a new sheet of paper and began to draw a house._

Dean remembered watching the two of them together, those silent kids with world-weary eyes and knowing there was hope for Lucas that he might speak again someday, but knowing deep down in his heart of hearts that Alex would remain silent forever. So imagine his surprise, shock, and disbelief when a few months ago, out of nowhere, Alex had stubbed her toe on something and yelped out loud in pain. All three of them had been totally shocked at the sound, the first sound out of her mouth since she'd been a baby. At first they had all been beside themselves with disbelief and overwhelming happiness—but then they had all stopped, suspicious, wondering how—why—and who? They _still _didn't know of these answers.

The first few days, Alex hadn't been able to speak too well, stuttering a lot and getting overwhelmed and frustrated with her newfound ability. But these days, you'd never know she'd ever been mute. She spoke easily, argued a lot, joked, laughed, snarked off as if she had always been able to—which was another mystery, something that bothered Dean deeply. She'd caught on fast. Too fast. It _had_ to be supernatural, however she'd been fixed up and Dean knew that—but didn't have a clue how to find out who or what was responsible. He thought maybe, _maybe_ Dad had done it somehow from beyond the grave, but he had no way of knowing that for sure. For a moment, Dean thought how much he would like—no, how much he _needed_ to stick around a few years more, if only to find out who had fixed her and _why_. Soon, the Hellhounds would come. Dean's expression darkened and he gripped the steering wheel tighter.

In the back seat and lost in her own thoughts, Alex was also thinking about her newfound voice. Being inexplicably healed of a life of silence, of the inability to make a single noise didn't sit well with her. The having a voice part was great, the not having a clue _why _was what ate away at her. In her experience, good things didn't just randomly happen to her. Ever.

For her entire life, Alex had lived in her own internal world, watching life happen and not feeling part of it. She'd spent a lot of time imagining her responses to conversations she was never a part of. Giving grand monologues inside her head for hours at a time. Wondering what would change if she could speak, respond, and participate like everyone else could.

If she tried to look at it from a positive angle, all she could come up with was that she'd gotten really good at writing fast and clear, since she used notepaper to communicate. She never learned sign language—Dad had always insisted, sometimes really angrily, that she didn't need to learn it, he was going to find a way to fix her. Well, he never had. Throughout the years, some kindhearted teachers had insisted on sign language classes for her a few times but Alex had never really put any effort into learning it. She'd known her brothers and especially her dad wouldn't have the time to learn it, and they were the only ones she really cared about communicating with. That and as soon as she'd be enrolled in the class, it'd be time to change schools again, anyway. They traveled—a lot—and school had been a big, stupid blur. She hadn't been like Sam, good grades and Mr. Honor Roll.

It had always seemed like a cruel joke, that a girl like Alex—in a family that lived to hunt down and killed the undead—would have an extra thing holding her back. She was already in the minority, being a girl, being the smallest, being the youngest. So being mute was the cherry on top of the crappy sundae. She had overcompensated, trying to prove to Dad and herself that she wasn't weaker and that she wasn't any less of a person. She'd obsessively worked on her marksmanship until she was the best shot of either of her brothers, she'd studied Latin on her own instead of doing homework, she'd taught herself to look at something for just a few seconds and remember details, she'd tried and tried and _tried_. But still, she'd felt overlooked by Dad.

Her brothers were her saving grace in all those hard moments, but especially Dean. Dean who had always gone out of his way to look out for her, comfort her, stick up for her, protect her. Dean who had seen the ways she worked hard to please Dad and patted her on the shoulder, told her good job when Dad had said nothing. Dean who had stuck by her side, even when Sam left the family, even when Dad disappeared for weeks and months on end. Dean who had never let her down, not even once. Dean who _couldn't _die, who _couldn't _leave her here alone.

Alex felt desperation bubbling up inside her, and helplessness at the same time. You couldn't just break a soul contract. No one ever had, not that they knew of. She looked out the window, tears pricking her eyes. _Don't cry. Don't let them see you cry. _

She steeled herself, breathed in deep, cracked her knuckles one by one and forcibly made herself think about anything other than the soul deal, but not before reflecting miserably that maybe she was more like her brothers than she thought—avoiding the stark reality that was staring her down the barrel.

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_Author's Notes: And so concludes chapter one! In case you're wondering, Castiel's monologue at the beginning is from right around Man Who Would Be King (season 6). _


	2. Dead Walking

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 2 / Dead Walking

_"It's not the grave dates on the tomb, it's the short and sweet dash between the two." _  
- Pianos Become the Teeth

* * *

**Four and a Half Months Later**

Canned baked beans again. Alex shoveled the globby lukewarm lumps into her mouth and chased them with tap water, trying to get her breakfast over as fast as possible. Meals around here came from a can, and that wasn't going to change, and moreover, she didn't really care. Food didn't really taste like anything to her anymore, she didn't want to eat it, no matter what it was. But she made herself, because if she didn't, Bobby would. Across from the kitchen table where she sat, Bobby Singer was in his study, poring over some books with his whiskey close by. It was nine in the morning. Alex eyed his whiskey bottle a little wistfully. Maybe later. She started on her third cup of coffee instead. It seemed to have little to no effect in helping her feel alert or stay awake, but she was hoping maybe _this_ cup would help jump start her. She was tired to her bones. It wasn't that she didn't have_ time _to sleep. She just wasn't ever able to sleep more than a few hours at a time. There were nightmares. There were thoughts that wouldn't stop racing around her head. There were tears that never stopped coming.

Alex took a sip of the coffee, thought of how without Bobby's kindness, she probably would have either gotten killed or killed herself by now. She wasn't sure if she could go on living like this though. There was this huge void inside that ached day and night, made her existence miserable. She didn't want to live like this, but there was no other option. And she'd thought life was lonely _before_ Dean had died and Sam had left.

Sitting there at the familiar old kitchen table in the somewhat dilapidated house, Alex thought of how this place held so many of her childhood memories. She remembered playing hide-and-seek with Sam in the junkyard on their tenth birthday. She remembered one time the three of them had read some of Bobby's top shelf, forbidden-for-kids books secretly in the dead of the night... and then had nightmares for the next week after that. She remembered finding Dean with some 'borrowed' whiskey when he was sixteen and demanding that he to let her try some, or she'd tell. The memory brought a soft smile and then the familiar pain.

Alex got up, holding her coffee cup tightly, trying to not feel the loss, the gaping hole, the great sadness. She went into the study. "Anything?" she asked Bobby, who glanced up at her from underneath his ball cap.

"Maybe," he replied, preoccupied, turning the page of his book. "Possible werewolf down in Virginia."

"Let's get on that."

He didn't seem to share her enthusiasm, flicked another page in his book. "Rufus's already down that way, I'm gonna get him to handle it." He took a swig of his drink and grimaced as he set the bottle down on the table with a loud thud. "'Sides, we just got back from smokin' that nest of vamps—take a breather."

Alex's jaw tightened, she turned her mug of coffee in her hand, every muscle in her body tense. "I can't _take a breather_. Lilith is still out there."

Bobby looked at her fully this time, cautioningly, sat back in his chair. "Yeah. She is. But running ourselves ragged ain't gonna magically get us where we can kill her. These things take time—research—preparation. We need to know what we're up against." He softened a little. "I know it ain't easy waiting. But trust me. If it's the last thing we do, we'll get the bitch." He pushed the book back a little from himself, looking at her fully. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good," she lied automatically. He looked at her sadly, and she could tell that he knew she wasn't good _at all_. But he said nothing.

_Dean is dead. _

No matter how hard she tried to forget it, push it aside, play it down… her big brother being gone forever was the cold reality. No amount of whiskey, hunting, coffee, whatever—could change that.

Alex felt tears coming on and quickly pressed her mouth into a flat line and managed a mumbled "I'll be outside," before she turned and hurried out into the salvage yard, allowing the tears to come as her knuckles turned white holding the forgotten coffee cup. Just when she thought she'd drained the last of her reserves, that she couldn't cry anymore—it would happen again, wracking her body with such intense grief that she felt like she would die. The loss, the desperation, the anger and bitterness crashed over her once again like the stormy ocean tide. She felt physically ill, mentally incapable, totally wrecked. She'd never known so much sorrow in her entire life. And that was saying something.

_Why didn't you save him? Why didn't you think of something? _

In a sudden burst of rage, Alex hurled the half-full coffee cup blindly. It crashed and shattered against an old, rusted Chevy—and Alex cried even harder, remembering the time Dean flew off the handle about Dad dying, the time he'd trashed the Impala. Alex had been sitting there beside one of the other junkers in this same salvage yard. She remembered it was really bright that day and she'd been wearing really old Converse shoes, squinting at the laces unseeingly, listening to Dean and Sam argue. Sam had wanted to know why Dean wasn't grieving Dad's death—Dean had given his brother some douchey, heartless response, Sam had gotten pissed and walked off. Alex remembered looking at her oldest brother, who hadn't even remembered she was there. His shoulders had been tense, his breathing weird. He stared at his car a long moment, completely still, the crowbar he was holding hanging there limply at his side. And then in a fit of absolute helpless rage, he had reeled back and then smashed one of the windows in. That hadn't been enough for him—it seemed to set him off in fact—he'd started beating the trunk of the car, tearing apart what he'd rebuilt—and Alex, who had jumped up when he smashed the window, grabbed his shoulder, startling him—he'd looked absolutely wrecked with grief. She'd shaken her head 'no,' wishing so badly she could talk out loud, tell him it was going to be okay, that he shouldn't blame himself, that she couldn't let him do this… but all she could do back then was look at him in total concern, try to reach out and pull him in for a hug—but he'd tried to push her away. She'd refused to be pushed, shaken her head 'no' again, sterner this time, daring her brother to keep up the stupid charade—and then his front had dissolved, he'd broken down, dropped the crowbar and hugged her tightly, pressed his face into the top of her shoulder. He'd shaken with sobs, clung to her hard. "It's my fault," he had choked out over and over again. "_It's my fault_."

And it hadn't been, but that was Dean. He blamed himself for everything, always.

Alex looked over to her left—the exact spot in the salvage yard where all that had happened, and her grief was renewed a hundred times over. For her entire life, Dean was the _one thing _that had never changed. Sam had been come and go, hit or miss, Dad mostly absent and distant even when he was there. Her life had been a shaky off-the-rails roller coaster. Nothing had ever been permanent, nothing had ever been constant or unchanging. Nothing except her oldest brother, who had been her absolute hero, her best friend.

She sniffed, wiped her cheeks off, growing stony and numb, feeling so hollow. For the past four and a half months she had been drowning in her grief alone. It was hard to face the facts, but her family was pretty much gone completely—only she and Sam had survived, and, hell, at the rate they were going, the two of them would probably be dead soon too. Sam might be dead already, she didn't know—they hadn't _spoken_ in four months. Her stomach turned bitterly, guiltily. She looked across the junk yard blankly, arms hanging at her sides. She should call him. She had this thought every single day, and every day she almost did—then stopped herself. She already knew how it would go. Badly.

She remembered their fight three days after Dean's funeral. It had cut her deep and it still hurt bad. She was still too angry to want to even see his face, and still too ashamed of some of the things she'd said to attempt to make any kind of peace. Things had been rocky in their brother-sister relationship, well, for a long time now, but especially since Sam had left for college when they had been eighteen. And after burying Dean, things went from bad to absolute worst...

_Late into the night and the two surviving Winchesters were awake, sharing another bottle of whiskey in Bobby's study. A couple other discarded, emptied bottles laid nearby. The twins had been at it for several hours, drinking up to Dean's memory and getting more than a little wasted in the process. Alex had the bottle right now and was staring at it miserably. "I still think we need to go back, Sam. We should salt and burn his bones just to be safe. It's what Dean would want."_

_Sam ran a hand through his hair tiredly. "No—we've been over this—we need his body for when I bring him back. Gimme the bottle."_

_Alex glared a wrning at him, held the whiskey bottle to herself. "If you say that one more time, I swear Sam..."_

_Sam looked at her with one of more stubborn, exasperated expressions. "He's our big brother, Alex. I'm finding a way." His tone was deadly serious, and Alex scooted toward him from where she sat on the couch. He was eyeing the bottle in her hand._

_"I want him back, too, but we can't keep messing with death. You get that, right?" she looked at him long and hard, he avoided her gaze, stayed silent, and Alex frowned. "He's _gone_, Sam. We buried his body. He died so that you could live, remember? So live." She sounded incredibly bitter and horrible, even to herself._

_Sam stood up, clearly agitated, throwing his arms wide dramatically. "Well, I can't live without him, okay?"_

_The twins looked at each other quietly, tensely, for a moment, and Alex swallowed a hard lump in her throat, looked away. "Me either. But we have to."_

_Sam crossed his arms defiantly. "No, we _don't_have to. We can bring him back, I know it. There has to be a way."_

_Alex stood up at that point, set the whiskey bottle down, trying to reason with her brother. Even though she was five foot eight inches, he still towered over her. "Yeah there are ways to bring people back—dark magic, forfeit your soul, demon deals—and even if that worked, Dean wouldn't be Dean. He'd be some kind of twisted zombie Dean, he wouldn't be _him_. Do you hear yourself? Come _on_, Sam. You're being delusional and you need to stop." Her words were a little slurred at this point._

_Sam was getting angry. "He's in _hell_, Alex. We can't leave him in there."_

_Alex said nothing, deeply troubled, feeling really drunk too. She didn't want to leave him there, but she knew there was no way to bring her brother back that wasn't laced with dark, demonic consequences. It was an impossible, heartbreaking situation. She wished in that moment that she knew nothing about the supernatural. Maybe then she wouldn't be forever after tormented with thoughts of maybe, somehow saving her brother. If she weren't a hunter who had seen so many people come back from death, maybe she could just accept the fact that her brother was dead and move on._

_A muscle jerked in Sam's cheek as he fixed her with narrowed eyes that seemed to suddenly despise her. "You really don't give two craps about him, do you? After all he did for you."_

_"Excuse me?"_

_Sam gave a short, humorless laugh. "All I'm saying is if he could see you now, how you don't even want to try to bring him back or even _try_ to—" Sam was saying, but Alex cut him off._

_Her temper was rising, as well as her voice. "You know what, _screw you_. I loved Dean just as much as you did, geez, probably more, and guess what? I never friggin' abandoned my family like you did! So don't you dare lecture me about who cares more about him—all you ever did for him or _me_ was walk out."_

_He seemed to think that was funny, pausing and scoffing, then laughing a short, biting laugh. "Are you really that jealous of me having a normal life?"_

_Exasperated and disgusted, Alex threw her hands in the air, like she couldn't believe he went there. "That's not what this is about!"_

_Sam's mouth was in a thin line, he was unconvinced. "Yeah, like hell it isn't. I know you're pissed at me for, I dunno, going off to college, living my own life, leaving you with Dean and Dad. You know what, just because you were disabled didn't mean I was obligated to waste the rest of my damn life babysitting you." _

_Alex's face fell in wounded shock, and Sam immediately seemed to regret his choice of words, fumbling. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."_

_Crushed beyond words, Alex felt her eyes stinging with tears. She shook her head, not sure if she recognized the guy standing in front of her. And fueled by anger, bitterness, and pride, her next words were out before she could stop herself. "You don't even deserve what Dean did for you," she said scornfully, hiding her tears and hitting Sam where it hurt. "He should never have made that crossroads deal for you!" The words hit the air and it was too late to take them back—and Alex stood there, shocked that she'd said that but too prideful and hurt to take it back. And Sam's face went cold, and he stared at her wordlessly for several seconds. Then he made a disgusted face, shook his head, over it. "You know what? I don't need this crap from you," he said darkly, and without another word, he turned and stalked out of the house. "Yeah, leave like you always do!" Alex screamed even as Sam slammed the door hard enough to break something. She almost went after him, suddenly panicking, taking two steps after him—and then stopping. She was either too proud to follow and say she was sorry, or too afraid that he wouldn't care, and leave anyway—and she just stood there, stupid and useless, swaying a little from the whiskey. And a couple seconds later, she could hear the Impala as it started up and tore out of the driveway. _

_She heard soft footsteps behind her. "Jesus, you two were about to bring the whole house down," Bobby commented uncomfortably.  
_

_Alex swallowed, pretended to be fine. "He'll be back," she said tersely._

But he didn't come back. He didn't call. Nothing. She had stewed for a week, waiting to hear from him, waiting for him to crawl back. And... nothing. Before she knew it, it had been two weeks. Then three. Now, almost four months later, she was at the point where she felt there was no returning—that it was too late to try and make amends. And honestly, maybe she didn't _want_ to. She wasn't sure she could forgive him for what he'd said. And what she had said to him? It had been even worse, even more unforgivable than what he'd said to her. Dean would have been pissed as hell to see them not speaking. What a mess. What a horrible, stupid mess. It was fitting though, because that's what her life was, after all. A wreck. And Sam's absence was just further confirmation that he didn't want to be part of the family and never had at all. He'd walked out, just like before when he turned eighteen. Sure, Dean had dragged him back into the life a few years ago and Sam had stuck around, hunted with them again, acted like he belonged in the life. But she should have known that it was just a matter of time before he left again. Apparently Dean had been the only thing keeping the family together. Apparently she wasn't someone worth sticking around for.

She kicked a discarded beer can aimlessly, not even sure why she was bothering with life anymore. It felt pointless. Totally pointless. Empty. She had no one but Bobby, and he was great, really. But not the same as who she'd lost. Absently, she listened to the sound of Bobby's phone ringing inside the house for the second or third time and hoped it was another hunter with a job for them. She wanted to be hunting something. Anything. And more than that, she wanted to be hunting down Lilith. Maybe after a couple more months of getting her head right and hunting alongside Bobby, she'd go find Sam, try to apologize or something and they could work together on taking down that evil bitch together. It would be the least they could do in memory of their brother. Either way, Alex didn't want to lose the only living relative she had left. _But maybe you already have_, said a quiet, dark voice inside.

The sound of Bobby's heavy footsteps sounded behind and then beside her. "Hey, you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah, why?"

He looked at her a little strangely. "You've just been standing out here for almost an hour."

Alex blinked in surprise. _An hour?_ "I guess I lost track of time. Who called?"

"Some jackass," Bobby said, seeming a little distracted. "It wasn't anything."

Alex looked at him carefully now. Something seemed off, piqued her attention and suspicion. "You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Look, those salt rounds aren't gonna pack themselves," he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the house.

"Oh, crap, yeah. Forgot. I'll do that now."

Bobby gave her a crooked little smile and patted her a little awkwardly on the shoulder. "I'm makin' more coffee. Lemme know when those rounds are packed." He turned to go inside and Alex made to follow, but a flash of light in her peripheral vision caused her to stop, turn, and squint—she could have sworn, for a millisecond, that someone had been standing there. But there was nothing there. She frowned at herself, retreating into the house with a few backward glances. She sometimes saw those flashes of light at the corners of her vision, but when she looked, there would be nothing there—she probably needed to go see an eye doctor or something. She saw them more and more, especially since Dean died.

She went downstairs into the basement and began loading up salt rounds, packing shotgun shells full of rock salt. This was a task she had been assigned to since she could remember. Even though she was the baby of the family _and_ the instant minority since she was the only girl, Dad had always taught her everything her brothers had learned about hunting and killing the undead. And _this_ had always been her job, the thing she took care of for the family. Dad hadn't taken her on many hunts, but he'd let her do this. Methodically she filled shell after shell. The salty smell would stay on her fingers and on her skin for awhile. It was a comforting smell and took her away from her deeper, more painful thoughts. After awhile, she heard the shuffling of feet on the floor over her head—two pairs of feet. She hadn't known Bobby was expecting company. She kept on with the shells. She had probably filled a hundred now and her neck was tired, her fingers cramping. Just a few more and... up above her, she heard sounds like something had been knocked over, and then the sound of shouting. Blood running cold, she bolted up the stairs without a second thought, a shotgun in hand. She shoved a spare round into it as she went, not sure what she was going to find.

Rounding the corner at the top of the steps, she froze at the sight before her. Bobby, standing and staring as _Dean_, silver knife in hand stood stock still, blood dripping from his forearm. The two men looked from each other to her. When Dean saw her, an indescribable expression—something like disbelief and joy—passed over his features, and the knife lowered, he made to move toward her, but she was taking a step back, aiming the shotgun at him even before he could move. Completely shocked, she felt like she could puke or collapse. "What is this Bobby? _Who is that_?" Alex demanded, almost shouting or crying, she wasn't sure which. She was shaking all over, wondering what kind of sick joke this was.

"Al, it's me," he said. At the sound of the familiar gravelly voice, Alex froze, confused and horrified and shellshocked. She was breathing hard, her heart was hammering a million miles an hour. She looked at Bobby questioningly, who was reaching for her weapon. "Gimme the gun, kiddo. I... I think it really is him," Bobby said, sounding a little dazed. Alex jerked away from Bobby, refusing to give up her weapon. She held it with renewed aggression, staring at the guy who looked like her oldest brother. "No," she said through gritted teeth. "Not possible."

Dean was slowly laying his knife down, and then keeping his hands out, as if to show her he meant no harm. "It's really me, Al. You gotta believe me."

Alex shook her head, feeling sick with hope, but refusing to believe it. She fixed him with a hard expression, but felt her eyes filling with tears. "I watched you _die_. I saw you buried." She began to despair. "How _could_ you be—" she paused, aghast, "here again?"

Dean looked about as sure as she was. "I dunno how, but I'm here. And I'm _me_."

He _looked_ like Dean, he _sounded_ like Dean. He even _stood_ like Dean. Her breathing was labored as she looked at the anxious face of her older brother. It really did look like him. And she_ wanted_ it to be, oh God she wanted it to be but _how was this possible_? She looked at him carefully, still holding the shotgun level at his chest, which seemed to be inspiring a great sadness in his eyes. She looked down over him completely, looking for proof that it was him or wasn't him. Then she noticed how he nervously clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. A subtle little motion, barely perceptible. She stared—he had always done that when he was uncomfortable or nervous. That—the little nervous tic she had seen a thousand times during their shared lifetime—that was something a demon or shapeshifter would never be able to duplicate to perfection. She looked him in the eye, her heart completely flooded with a surge of amazed, overjoyed disbelief. Alex crashed into Dean, arms around his neck, shotgun still in her hand as she began to cry from the overwhelming emotions.

"It _is_ you. Oh my God, it _is you_!" Alex shook from sobs, and Dean buried his face in her shoulder, relieved, breaking down too, embracing her so tightly she could barely breathe. For a moment they just gripped each other like that, then Alex pulled back to look at him again, just in time to see water splash across his face. Deadpan, he blinked and spit, made a face. "Not a demon either, Bobby." The Winchesters looked in unison in Bobby, who shrugged sheepishly. "Sorry. Can't be too careful."

Floating, in a gaze, Alex got a towel out of one of the kitchen drawers laid down the shotgun as Bobby and Dean hugged tightly. Dean took the towel with a "thanks," and Alex stared, unable to believe this, still afraid to. This was surreal, and that was putting it lightly. "How-how the hell are you back, Dean?" she asked as they followed Bobby into the study. She couldn't stop looking at him.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Dean said. He sounded almost as dazed as she was.

Bobby crossed his arms and fixed Dean with a serious gaze. "Dean. Your chest was _ribbons_, your insides were slop. And you've been buried for _four months_. Even if you could slip out of hell and back into your meat suit—"

"I know, I should look like a Thriller video reject." The humorous comment fell flat. They all knew something was very off about this entire situation. Alex hovered close to her brother, kind of afraid, however illogically, that if she walked away, he'd disappear.

"What do you remember about what happened?" Bobby asked.

Dean shook his head. "Not much. I remember I was a Hellhound's chew toy, and then... lights out. Then I come to six feet under, that was it." He switched subjects. "Sam's number's not working." He looked at Alex, suddenly seeming to have a horrible thought occur to him. "He's... he's not...?"

She looked away from Dean, ashamed.

"Oh, he's alive," Bobby assured. "As far as we know."

"Good... Wait, what do you mean, as far as you know?"

Bobby glanced at Alex uncomfortably and she took the cue to explain. "We, uh, haven't heard from Sam since a few days after you died."

In disbelief, Dean looked from Bobby to Alex. "You're kidding. You two just let him go off by _himself_?"

"_He_ left, didn't really ask us about it," Alex said, her tone a little shorter than she had intended.

Dean was now frowning, his trademark big-brother lecture face and tone coming out. "You should've been looking after him."

"Yeah, maybe," she said, feeling bitter about the way things were with Sam. Her eyes scanned the floor in front of her, seeing the fight she'd had with her twin all over again. "Things fell apart pretty fast after you died."

Bobby was now sitting at his desk, drumming the surface thoughtfully with his fingers. "These last months haven't been exactly easy, you know. For any of us. We had to _bury_ you. Your brother and sister, they just couldn't hold it together. We all took it pretty hard."

Dean seemed moderately chastened, and let it go. "Why did you bury me, anyway?"

Alex sat down in one of the chairs across from Bobby's desk and Dean followed suit.

"Alex and I wanted you salted and burned. Usual drill. But... Sam wouldn't have it."

"Well, I'm glad he won that one," Dean said. Another attempt at a joke that got nothing from Bobby or Alex. Bobby looked troubled instead.

"He said you'd need a body when he got you back home somehow."

Dean grew suspicious. "He said that?" He looked at his sister, frowning. Alex tried to explain it as best she could in a brief way. "Yeah. He told me a bunch of times he would find a way to bring you back. I tried to talk some sense into him, Dean—but he wouldn't listen. It turned into a huge fight. And then... he left." She drew a heavy breath, feeling guilty. "I, uh, I didn't try to follow or find him. And I still haven't."

Dean's expression was strange—disillusioned, hurt. Disappointed.

Bobby let out a heavy breath through his nostrils. "Well, _I_ tried to find him, even though Alex here wouldn't hear of helping me. Sam wouldn't return my calls, lost me pretty fast when I tried to track him down. He didn't want to be found."

"Dammit, Sammy." Dean shook his head and rubbed his face in his hands. "Whatever he did, it's some kind of bad mojo."

"What do you mean?" Bobby asked.

"You should have seen the grave site," Dean said, sounding deeply apprehensive. "It was like a nuke went off. And then there was this... this force, this presence, I don't know, but it, it blew past me at a fill-up joint. And then _this._" He stood up and yanked his jacket off, pulled up the sleeve of his shirt. There on his shoulder, in red scar tissue, a chillingly clear hand print.

Bobby and Alex jumped to their feet in unison, staring at it in shock. "It was like a demon just yanked me out," Dean said, then paused darkly. "Or _rode_ me out."

Alex reached out and gingerly ran her fingertips across the raised scar tissue, then met Dean's gaze, deeply troubled. "To hold up their end of the bargain," she surmised, and inside she was beginning to feel terrified of who or what had done this.

"Looks that way," Dean replied grimly, and pulled the sleeve of his shirt down again.

"My God," Bobby breathed. "There's no telling what we're up against here."

Dean was putting his jacket back on, his expression dark. "We need to find Sam, and quick."

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ Castiel will show up next chapter! Please leave me a review if you read and enjoyed... I love to hear from you! I love the Winchester family dynamic and am having a lot of fun writing a sister for them. What do YOU think a Winchester sister would be like?_


	3. Three's Company

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 3 / Three's Company

_"So plunge your pen-like words and cast cruel spells, string together poison words that quickly kill."  
- _Armchair Cynics_  
_

* * *

Finding Sam was easy enough thanks to modern technology and Dean's quick detective work. Within an hour of Dean's arrival at Bobby's, the three hunters were headed back Pontiac, Illinois—disturbingly enough, the place where Sam was staying was close to where Dean had been buried. It looked like Sam had succeeded in getting Dean back, but the question was, how?

A couple hours into the drive, they pulled over at a gas station. Bobby was outside his Chevelle fueling up as Dean was digging into a fast food burger in the front seat.

"Oh my _God_," Dean was saying through a mouth full of burger. "This is amazing." He made a very appreciative "_mmm_" sound and grinned back at Alex, which was kind of disgusting with all the bits of burger and mayonnaise in his teeth.

"You're gross," she said, the would-be-insult touched with a certain note of affection. He raised the burger her way in salute, chewing loudly. Still, Alex smiled, feeling it in her soul itself. In this moment, it was like Dean had never left at all. She momentarily forgot the months of pain and confusion and wandering; the overwhelming loneliness. She was in a car watching Dean pigging out on junk food... and it was the best thing in the world. Well, almost. The only thing missing was Sam. Alex's smile faded as she thought about her other brother. She felt so many things toward him—anger, remorse, guilt, disappointment, heartbreak. She thought about the 'babysitting' comment and wondered for the millionth time if that's all she had been to Sam—a responsibility he hadn't wanted. And maybe Sam wasn't the only one who thought that. She glanced at Dean. "Dean, can I ask you something?"

"Duh," Dean replied as he took another huge bite of his sandwich.

She fidgeted a little, suddenly interested in her fingernails and not sure how to put her question into words, second guessing herself. She was about to sound so stupid and idiotic... but if she didn't ask, she wouldn't know, and she _had to know_. Still, this was going to suck to come right out and ask. She pushed forward even though she felt a little physically sick at the thought of asking. She tried to sound nonchalant. "I, uh, I was just wondering... and just tell me the truth, okay?" She went quiet, hesitated. "How bad of a burden was I on, you know, the family, while we were growing up?"

Attention piqued, the hamburger was temporarily forgotten and Dean looked at her intently, frowning. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Alex got more uncomfortable. She didn't want to explain it. She struggled a little on how to word it. "I mean, it was hard on Dad to have these three kids tagging along after him all that time, and then one of them was you know—_special needs_." She said 'special needs' with a certain type of disdain that her brother clearly didn't like.

Dean's face was hard and a little angry. "Hey. I told you a million times—you have never been disabled, okay? Nothing about being mute made you any less of a person. You were never any kind of burden on us." Alex met his eyes hesitantly, feeling younger and smaller than she was.

"Then why did Sam leave us when he was eighteen? And why did he leave again?"

Dean was aghast. "You think that was_ your _fault?"

Alex looked down at her hands angrily. "I _know_ it was."

Dean seemed to soften, his eyes saddening. "Al... no." He sighed, a weary sound. "Dammit, you really are too much like me." He sounded guilty, but quickly covered it up with a try at reassurance. "Listen, I'm sure it can't be as bad as you think."

"You didn't hear the fight we had," she said. Her eyes fell away from his in shame. "What I said to him. Or what he said to me."

Across the parking lot, Bobby was coming out of the convenience store now and heading back toward the car. Dean saw that and hurried himself up. They didn't do chick flick moments in front of anyone but each other in this family. "Listen, whatever happened between you two... we'll stow it," he said. "We'll find Sam and put this damn family back together if it kills us." He paused, and then added as an afterthought, "Like it or not."

Alex said nothing.

"_Okay_?" Dean prompted, a little forcefully.

Alex nodded automatically and gave him a "yeah," even though she was wondering if that were possible at all. Or if she even wanted it. She felt sick physically thinking of seeing Sam again, which was sad. She had idolized Sam and depended on him during her childhood. They had drifted apart as teens, fallen apart completely when he went to Stanford... gotten sort of close again a couple years ago. But she just really didn't know if it could be repaired again.

* * *

"Wakey wakey," Alex heard, and felt herself being shaken. She started awake, and found herself staring at Dean through bleary eyes. "Where are we?" she asked, looking around a little groggily and sitting up from where she'd been slumped into the car door.

"Some cheesy motel," Dean said, and that's when Alex saw a familiar, dark car parked a few rows over. The Impala. Her stomach jumped. She was no longer sleepy at all. Sam _was_ here.

"Bobby went in to find out what room Sam's holed up in," Dean said, and got out of the car. Alex scrambled out after him, grabbing her jacket and yanking it on. The night air was chilly, and the motel sign flickered a couple times. She suddenly felt very afraid of what they might face when they knocked on the door of whatever room Sam was in. Dean seemed to be thinking something similar, his expression tense.

"Dean, what are we gonna find in there?" Alex asked, her voice full of quiet fear. A muscle jerked in Dean's cheek and his brow darkened. He return her questioning gaze. "I don't know."

Just then, Bobby appeared out of the check-in office and quickly made his way over to the Winchesters. "Wedge Antilles is in room two-oh-seven," he reported.

A smile fleetingly passed over Dean's face and Alex even had to smile, look down as Dean chuckled softly. "That's my boy," he said. "Let's go."

And with that the three of them set off to finding the room, but not before Dean walked by the Impala. "Baby," Dean said affectionately, running a hand across the hood of his car. The inside of the motel was dim and run down—much like almost every other place they had ever stayed, Alex thought. At the end of the hall, room 207 was marked by a cheesy red heart plaque. "Here goes nothin'," Dean muttered, and knocked on the door.

The door swung open, and the three of them couldn't hide their surprise—instead of Sam, a pretty, dark-haired young woman stood there, dressed in only underwear and a tank top. She looked at them expectantly. "So where is it?" she asked.

"Where's what?" Dean asked, confused.

"The _pizza_... that takes three people to deliver?"

"Uh, I think we got the wrong room," Dean said.

And then, a tall, familiar figure stepped into their line of sight from somewhere back in the room. "Hey is—" Sam stopped dead when he saw Dean, swallowing, his face the picture of shock. His eyes flickered between Dean and Alex, and he seemed completely caught off guard—almost panicked.

"Heya, Sammy," Dean said, and Alex could hear all of the deep, unspoken emotions in Dean's quiet greeting. He stepped into the room, moving toward Sam. Sam's eyes went cold, his body tensing. "Wait, Dean—" Alex warned, moving forward and trying to stop her brother from going any closer, but it was too late. Sam whipped out a knife and with a roar, lunged at Dean. Dean blocked the knife slash just barely, even as Alex tackled Sam the only way she knew how, using her entire weight to slam her shoulder into his side, effectively knocking Sam to the side. The knife clattered to the floor even as the girl who had answered the door shrieked. Bobby was just behind Alex and grabbed Sam, who was recovering from his sister's attack. Alex stumbled back, a little jarred from the impact. Bobby was barely managing to hang on to Sam, who struggled violently, shouting at Dean, "Who are you?!"

"It's him, Sam! It's him. I've been through this already, it's _really_ him!" Bobby managed through gritted teeth, fighting to hold Sam back.

"What..." Sam stuttered, as the struggle left his body. He looked at Alex, searching for confirmation. Alex nodded, and he swallowed again, looking at Dean in complete disbelief.

"I know. I look fantastic, huh?" Dean asked.

Bobby cautiously let go of Sam, who was now on the verge of tears. He had eyes only for Dean, and pulled his brother into a crushing hug. The two of them gripped each other tightly, pulling back to look at each other. "So are you two like... together?" asked the girl, who everyone had forgotten was there until then.

"What? No. No. He's my brother," Sam said.

"Uh... got it. I... I guess. Look, I should probably go," she said, already turning to pick up a shirt off the floor.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Sorry."

She grabbed her jeans, too and shimmied into them right there in front of them all. Alex saw Bobby, ever the gentleman, looking down and tugging the brim of his cap lower, clearly a little embarrassed. Dean however, watched openly, looking mildly approving. The girl grabbed her bag, and Sam walked her to the door. "So, call me," she said, looking up at Sam hopefully.

"Yeah, sure thing, Kathy."

She paused, disappointed. "Kristy."

"Uh, right," Sam said, and shut the door.

Alex looked at Dean, who shrugged. He also seemed to have noticed how un-Sam-like that entire scene was. Alex stayed her distance, leaning up against the wall and crossing her arms as Sam sat on the bed, grabbing a button up shirt and shrugging it over his t-shirt. Dean approached Sam, and stood over him, arms crossed. "So tell me, what'd it cost?

Sam had a little smile on his face as he buttoned the shirt. "The girl? I don't pay, Dean."

"That's not funny, Sam. To bring me back. What'd it cost? Was it just your soul, or was it something worse?"

Sam paused, looked at Dean with wide eyes. "You think I made a deal?" He asked. He sounded offended.

"We _know _you made a deal," Alex said coldly. Her first words to Sam, who looked at Alex with an unpleasant expression. "I _didn't_."

"Don't lie to us," Dean said, his tone darkening.

"I'm not lying," Sam insisted angrily.

"So what now, I'm off the hook and you're on, is that it?" Dean asked. "You're some demon's bitch-boy? I didn't want to be saved like this!"

Sam seemed to reach the end of his patience and stood up in anger. "Look, Dean, I wish I _had _done it, all right?!"

"Well who the hell else would have, Sam?" Alex demanded, trying to figure out Sam's angle in acting like he wasn't involved.

"I don't _know_!" Sam insisted, clearly agitated. "I tried _everything_. That's the truth. I tried opening the Devil's Gate. Hell, I tried to bargain, Dean, but no demon would deal, all right? You were rotting in Hell for months. For _months_, and I couldn't stop it. So I'm sorry it wasn't me, all right?"

The room went quiet as Bobby, Dean, and Alex processed what Sam had just told them. Alex shook her head in faint horror at her brother's actions, realizing how close Sam had gone to the edge, and thinking about how much he had risked. He could have gotten himself in serious trouble or even died. Even though that should have made her soften towards him, she only felt more angry at him for his reckless stupidity. Dean however seemed to relent, patting Sam on the shoulder. "It's okay, Sammy. You don't have to apologize, I believe you." He chuckled dryly. "After all, you did try to kill me when you first saw me. Probably wouldn't have done that if you were expecting to see me."

Sam looked embarrassed. "Sorry about that," he said lamely.

"Well kids," Bobby said, "I'm happy as apple pie to witness this reunion, but this all raises a pretty sticky question."

Alex was thinking the same thing. "Yeah—if Sam didn't pull you out, who—or what—did?"

Dean let out an annoyed huff of breath, clearly fed up with the entire exchange. "I need a friggin' beer," he growled.

"There's some in the fridge," Sam said, and Bobby muttered "thank God," and went to get some.

"So what were you doing around here if you weren't digging me out of my grave?" Dean asked Sam, sitting down across from Sam on the other twin bed.

Bobby handed out beers to the boys, but Alex shook her head no, intently listening to Sam, who held his beer without opening it. "Well, once I figured out I couldn't save you, I, uh, started hunting down Lilith, trying to get some payback." His eyes flickered over to Alex, who still stood against the wall with her arms crossed. She felt another stab of disappointment and anger at his confession. He looked away guiltily.

"All by yourself!" Bobby exclaimed, unhappy. "Who do you think you are, your old man?"

Dean got up, seeming to notice something on the floor a few feet away from him.

"Uh, yeah, I'm sorry, Bobby. I should have called," Sam said. He glanced again at Alex, who was stone-faced. "I was pretty messed up."

Dean gave a short, humorless laugh as he bent and picked up a discarded pink, flowered bra from the floor. "Oh yeah. I really feel your pain."

Alex looked at Sam hard, trying to figure out what was going on with him. Something felt wrong, but she wasn't sure what. He began telling them details about how he'd been hunting demons in the area and then she sort of spaced out, the voices of Dean, Bobby and Sam becoming like distant hazy sounds as she got lost in her thoughts—just a few hours ago she had thought Dean was dead. Just a few hours ago she thought maybe she never would see Sam again. Seeing him again, hearing that he had been hunting Lilith on his own—she felt wounded, deeply.

His decision to hunt Lilith without her seemed to confirm that nagging suspicion that Sam viewed her as a burden and a responsibility rather than an equal. That hurt. But worse than that, she realized she truly didn't trust him anymore. She had been holding onto hope that maybe they would find Sam and things would be okay somehow. Hunky dory, even. But that was just her being idealistic and hopeful. She should have known better than to allow herself to even toy with the idea of a happy ending, because up to now life had just been one damn heartbreak after another. Alex glanced over at her twin, who was looking at her out of the corner of his eye, his expression unreadable. He quickly looked away.

"I know a psychic," Bobby was saying. "A few hours from here. Something this big, maybe she's heard the other side talking."

"Hell yeah, it's worth a shot," Dean said.

Bobby took his phone out of his pocket and headed toward the door. "I'll be right back."

Dean stood up as if to leave, and Sam followed suit. "Hey, wait Dean. What was it like?" There was a moment in which all three of the Winchesters were silent, but especially Alex, who hadn't gathered the courage to ask Dean that question yet.

"What, Hell?" Dean paused, then shrugged. "I don't know, I, I must have blacked it out. I don't remember a damn thing."

"Well, thank God for that," Sam said, giving Dean a smile tinged with sadness.

"Yeah. Uh, bathroom." And with that, Dean left the room. Sam shoved his hands into his pockets and finally looked at Alex. Total silence spanned the space between the twins for several seconds, and Alex said nothing, just looked at Sam, who had his mouth drawn into a thin line.

"Hi Alex," he said finally, the words a little abrupt and cynical sounding, accompanied by a wan smile—but it looked more like a grimace.

"Sam," she said flatly, not bothering to hide her bad attitude.

He crossed his arms, his eyebrows knitting together. "It's been four months. Don't you have anything else to say to me?"

That was rich. She shrugged. "Not really."

"Wow. Missed you too, sis," he said, his words laced with sarcasm.

Alex let out a disgusted breath, ready to kick Sam's ass verbally. "You know what..." she began, but then thought better of it, and clamped her mouth shut, turning to walk away. "I'll be outside with Bobby."

* * *

**About an Hour Later**

Alex was slouching in the front seat of Bobby's Chevelle as the car raced across the miles toward a physic who could hopefully show them who or what had taken Dean out of hell. Alex hadn't wanted to ride with her brothers. She needed some space away from Sam to calm down or she might say something she regretted. Bobby had said next to nothing to her for the drive, not until that moment.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. "So listen, I know it ain't none of my business—"

"You're right, it's not," Alex said, a little rudely, which she regretted immediately—_geez Alex, what is your problem?_

Bobby was not deterred. "Well, I'm going there anyway. You and Sam need to work out this little drama if we're gonna have any luck taking down whatever baddie brought Dean back." He glanced at her sidelong. "Avoiding Sam is only going to work for so long."

Alex chewed the inside of her mouth, a bad habit she had picked up in childhood. She knew Bobby was right. "But what the hell am I supposed to do, Bobby? It takes two to tango. Sam pretty much told me I was a burden on him for his entire childhood and that he was happier when he was off at college. And then I told him I wished he were dead, in so many words." She paused unhappily, sullen and staring out the window, ashamed of herself. "It's all kinds of screwed up."

"You ain't kiddin," he said. "But it can be fixed. You know that. You two have fought before."

She looked at the dashboard now, face tense and rigid with distress. "Yeah, but not like this. Don't get me wrong, Bobby. I love the guy. But... I also can't stand him." Bobby chuckled softly at her statement and Alex wished she could see some humor in the situation, too. To her, it was all misery. She let out a heavy breath. "You know, it was so much easier when I couldn't talk."

Bobby glanced at her in surprise. "Easier?"

"Yeah. By the time I could write down my angry thoughts, I had a chance to process and rethink what I was going to say. Being able to just _spew_ my thoughts out is like having no filter. It's all kinds of harder than I thought. I keep making a mess of everything."

"Well, you wouldn't be a Winchester if you didn't have a spitfire temper, now would you?" Bobby asked, attempting to make her feel a little better.

Alex stared ahead somberly, oblivious to his attempt. "I dunno. I used to dream constantly about being able to speak. I thought it would make my life easier... but it feels more complicated than ever."

"Life ain't easy, period," Bobby in his no-nonsense way. "Now why don't you try and get some sleep? You look tired."

"I'm always tired," Alex said, and leaned up against the cold glass of the window. A moment of silence passed. "Bobby?"

"Yeah?"

She hesitated. "Do you think I should have tried to get Dean back? Was it wrong of me not to even try?"

Bobby's answer was immediate. "We did the right thing. He was gone, and there was no wholesome way to bring him back. You know that."

She did know that. But it also worried her, because in the back of her mind, she now believed that whatever had pulled Dean out of hell might have sinister plans for him—and Alex _refused t_o lose him again.

* * *

Cruising down the road, classic rock on the radio, and the familiar hum of the Impala engines. Dean Winchester was glad to be alive, momentarily free from his troubled thoughts. Out of habit, he glanced into the rearview, where he could usually see half of Alex's face where she sat in the back seat. He was reminded that she wasn't there, and he glanced at Sam, who was silent and pensive, brooding almost. On the radio, _Highway to Hell_ began playing. A little disconcerted, Dean switched the radio off. He didn't want to think about Hell right now. Unlike the lie he had told to Sam in the motel, he did remember it. All of it. Forcibly he pushed all of that out of his mind.

He cleared his throat and glanced over at Sam, who hadn't said much for the whole drive. "So there's still one thing that's bothering me."

"Yeah?"

"So, the night that I bit it. Or... got bit." Dean chuckled at his own joke, but Sam just stared, unamused. Dean composed himself. "Uh, sorry. How'd you make it out? I thought Lilith was going to kill you and Al."

Sam shook his head. He seemed distracted. "Well, she tried. She couldn't."

"What do you mean, she couldn't?"

Sam paused. "She fired this, like, burning light at me, and... didn't leave a scratch. Like I was immune or something."

"Immune," Dean repeated as if he hadn't heard right.

Sam shrugged, frowning slightly. "Yeah. I don't know who was more surprised, her or me. She left pretty fast after that. Seemed kinda spooked. Didn't even try to burn Alex. Just disappeared."

Dean's jaw was working oddly as he thought through the entire situation—his baby brother and sister left alone and undefended in this crappy, crazy world—but if that weren't bad enough, they hadn't even stuck together. He glanced at Sam irritably. "You know, I wanna know what the hell were you thinking leaving Alex alone for all that time, Sammy. You were supposed to protect her."

Sam glanced over at Dean, looking like he'd been caught. "She wasn't alone—she was with Bobby." Sam sounded kind of quieter than he had before. Like he didn't believe his own words. "She was fine."

"You didn't know that for a fact," Dean retorted. "You promised me that you would take care of her when I was gone," he said, reminding his brother of a conversation they'd had privately a few weeks before Dean's death day.

Sam said nothing, but his silence was distinctly guilty.

"So I die and the family falls apart?" Dean asked a little gruffly.

"Pretty much," Sam said apathetically, refusing to look Dean's way.

"Well what the hell happened to make you break that promise to me?" Dean demanded.

Sam looked disturbed. "Does it really matter, Dean?" He shrugged, uncomfortable. "We... we fought and I—I just needed to leave, okay?" Dean looked at Sam oddly, who was staring unseeingly into the windshield. "And besides, it was pretty clear to me that she didn't want me around anymore."

"Come on, Sam. She just lost her oldest brother, don't you think she might say some crap she didn't mean?"

Sam said nothing, just looked really unhappy. Dean shook his head, disappointed completely. "Come on, Sammy. I thought you two were closer than all this. I mean, you've fought before and didn't end up hating each others guts, right?"

"I mean, yeah, I guess," Sam muttered, reluctant. "You're right. We used to be close. But ever since I started hunting again after college, things have been different. And then with her whole voice thing..." he trailed off. "I dunno. I thought I knew her, but ever since she could talk again, it's like... she's not who I thought."

"Yeah, or maybe you liked her better when she couldn't call you on your crap or argue back," Dean said sharply. That comment seemed to trigger something in Sam, who exploded.

"Dean, why the hell are you defending her? Why am I getting all this _crap _from you? She's a grown woman for crying out loud and didn't need me babysitting her when you were gone. I_ told_ you, she didn't want me there, okay? I don't appreciate you making this whole thing about me and my problems!"

"I'm not, I'm just saying—"

"Yes, you _are,_" Sam insisted vehemently. "You're taking her side without even hearing about what went down!" Sam ran a hand through his shaggy hair, glaring at nothing in particular. "And you know what, when are we gonna talk about how weird it is that she got her voice back to begin with?" Sam was now talking with his hands, riled up. "And not just her voice Dean, but the _ability to speak_. I mean do you know how how... _not normal_ that is? Doesn't it freak you out?"

Dean glanced at Sam sidelong. Yeah, it did, but he wasn't about to admit to it. So he shrugged neutrally. "Guess after the life we've lived, I'll take whatever good I can get."

Exasperated, Sam looked away. A few moments of silence passed and Dean attempted a new conversation. "So you've been using your, uh, freaky ESP stuff?"

He got a barely-suppressed dirty look from Sam. "No."

"You sure about that? Well, I mean, now that you've got... immunity, whatever the hell that is... just wondering what other kind of weirdo crap you've got going on."

Sam gave Dean a fully aggravated look, losing patience. "Nothing, Dean. Look, you didn't want me to go down that road, so I didn't go down that road."

"Well thanks for honoring _that_ promise at least," Dean said sarcastically, and reached for the radio to turn the music back on.

Sam hunkered down in the seat silently, brooding.

* * *

They reached the psychic's house early the next morning. It was a normal looking house with potted flowers on the front porch. Dean and Sam got out of the Impala and approached the Chevelle where Alex stood and watching them approach. Bobby had intuitively walked ahead of them and was waiting at the foot of the porch, leaving the Winchesters to themselves for a minute.

Dean approached his sister, with a reluctant Sam in tow. Alex waited silently, her arms crossed. He was always struck by how for twins, the two of them looked pretty much nothing alike. Sam towered over his younger twin. He had about eight inches on her at his height of six-foot-four, and he probably weighed about eighty to a hundred pounds more than she did—she was tall for a girl but was built very petite and wiry, so she was much less imposing than her taller twin. They had a similar dark brown hair—Sam's shaggy and floppy, Alex's wavy, messy, and long—their eyes were the same hazel color. But that was where the similarities ended. Dean had decided awhile ago that Sam took more after their mom, and Alex took more after their dad. Sam had one of those faces that chicks dug—dimples, strong chin, expressive eyes. Alex had a plainer face than Sam—wide eyes, square jaw, dark eyebrows. But, even if the twins weren't too similar physically, they were similar in personality. Stubborn, hard-nosed, headstrong, emotional. So that's why having to referee this fight they were having was a pain in Dean's ass.

He cleared his throat and looked between the twins, fixing them with his best I'm-upset-with-you glare. In moments like these, he felt more like their dad than their brother. "Okay, listen. You two are going to stow your crap. Say you're sorry and agree to at least be civil to each other."

Sam and Alex looked at each other grudgingly and Dean waited unhappily. Alex gave in first. "Sorry, Sam." She clearly didn't really mean it.

"Yeah. Me too," Sam said, sounding as genuine as Alex did.

Dean was less than impressed. "Geez, you're making me weep here," he said sarcastically. They looked at him almost in unison, with identical, annoyed 'are you happy now?' bitchy expressions on their faces. Dean rolled his eyes at their refusal to really apologize. "How old are you guys, like _five_?!" He demanded, and with an exasperated huff he gave up and headed toward where Bobby was waiting near the house.

* * *

_Author's Note: __Okay, this chapter got way out of control and I had almost 8,000 words so I decided to split them up. Castiel is in the next chapter, I PROMISE! And, the next chapter will be up in just a couple days. Please leave a review if you're enjoying the story. Do you think Alex has a right to be angry at Sam? Is Sam's anger justified?_


	4. The Work of God

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 4 / The Work of God

_"Down here in the atmosphere, garbage and city lights. You've gone to save your tired soul; you've gone to save their lives."  
_- Our Lady Peace

* * *

They were welcomed inside the house by Pamela—a strong looking woman with a ready smile. Her little house was decorated with a few pagan artifacts and mystical imagery here and there, but otherwise looked like a normal home. She wasted no time flirting with Dean and Sam both—usually Alex wouldn't have cared, but Pamela was a little over the top in her no-nonsense style and Alex quickly began to feel very, very uncomfortable at the innuendos. Either way, Pamela set up a seance in very little time, and before long she called them to a small table where six lit candles waited. She had darkened the room and even though it was just in her kitchen, it felt eerie knowing what they were about to do.

"Right. Take each other's hands," Pamela instructed. Alex looked to her left, where Sam sat. He held out his hand to her, a grudging peace offering. She took it, not missing Dean's watchful, pleased smile across the table.

"I need to touch something our mystery monster touched," Pamela said, and looked at Dean coyly.

"Whoa. Well, he didn't touch me there," Dean said, jumping a little and Pamela feigned ignorance. "My mistake." Alex, Sam, and Bobby exchanged confused looks—had she just reach under the table and... yes. She probably had. Sam's eyebrows raised up and Alex made a face that seemed to say 'well! Okay then!'

Dean pulled up his sleeve, revealing the angry red hand print branded onto his shoulder. The humor of the moment was forgotten as Sam stared in shock, and looked from Alex to Bobby, who were somber again, remembering the reason why they had come to this psychic. Pamela laid her hand on the scar.

"Okay." Pamela closed her eyes, and everyone else followed suit. "I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle," she said, and repeated it three times. Her television flicked on, and the sound of static filled the room. "I invoke, conjure, and command... Castiel? No. Sorry, Castiel, I don't scare easy."

"Castiel?" Dean asked. Alex peeked up, too. What the hell was a Castiel?

"Its name. It's whispering to me, warning me to turn back," Pamela said, and continued chanting. "I conjure and command you, show me your face," she repeated this over and over, louder each time. The room began to shake, and the static grew louder.

Alex gripped Sam's hand tighter, opening her eyes just barely and watching as the table began to vibrate. Bobby was also opening his eyes, and he was clearly thinking this was a bad idea. "Maybe we should stop," he said loudly, raising his voice over the din.

"I almost got it," Pamela said, not about to back down, "I command you, show me your face!" She was shouting now. "_Show me your face NOW!_"

At that moment the candles flared up into flames several feet high—Pamela screamed as her eyes flew open, filled with horrifying white-hot flame. Before any of the rooms occupants could even react, the flames went out and she collapsed, moaning. The house became silent—the rattling, white noise, and flames stopping. "My eyes... my eyes!" she was sobbing.

"Call 911! Call 911!"

* * *

**A Few Hours Later**

Bobby watched as Alex spoke to the on-call doctor inside Pamela's room. That was something to be proud of, wasn't it—in the past few months he had affectionately started calling Alex his 'little protegé' and had really seen the kid grow a lot in confidence and ability. Not only as a hunter, but just as a person. His eyes went to Pamela, and the good feelings evaporated and were replaced by guilt and regret. The psychic was resting in a hospital bed, her eyes covered with a sleeping mask. Bobby felt another overwhelming surge of guilt—he really should have insisted she stop when things got all shaky.

After a few moments, Alex nodded her thanks to the doctor and both she and the MD came out of the room. Alex was looking at Bobby in a way he didn't like—all sad and sensitive, like she was feeling sorry for him or trying to think of a way to make him feel better. It reminded him of Sam, actually.

"So what's the scoop?" Bobby asked as the doctor retreated down the hallway and out of earshot.

"Well, the doc says they're going to keep her overnight for observation. Pamela's daughter is on the way to come look after her."

"Will she be all right?" Bobby asked, looking into the room and feeling entirely powerless.

"She's blind, obviously—no eyeballs left—but other than that she's fine," Alex said. Then seemed to realize she'd put it kind of bluntly—made a face like she wished she had thought it over better.

"This is my fault," Bobby muttered, hating himself.

Alex got over herself and gripped him gently by the arm, demanding his attention, looking straight into his eyes without blinking. "Hey, you're not the one who burned her eyes out, Bobby. It was that..." she tried to remember, "Castle guy."

"I shouldn't have gotten her involved in this mess to begin with," Bobby said.

Alex didn't disagree. "Well, she's alive, right? That's something. You couldn't have known what was gonna happen."

"Yeah, I guess," Bobby said. He wasn't in the mood to be cheered up.

Alex relented—she knew when to leave Bobby alone, and now was one of those times. Just then her phone rang in her pocket and she pulled it out, squinting at the screen. She was pretty sure it was one of Sam's old numbers. "Hello?"

"It's me," Dean's voice said. "So, some demons just tried to jump me and Sammy over here at the local mom 'n pop diner—"

"What? Are you guys okay?" Alex interrupted.

"Yeah, yeah. Come back to the motel pronto, okay? There's probably more demons in town and I don't want you on your own."

"That's sweet, Dean," she said, a touch of good natured sarcasm on her voice, "but I'm fine. Besides, I'm with Bobby."

"Come on, just get back to the motel. It'll be dark soon and I don't want you out there at night. Oh, and bring pie."

"Fine, fine. I'm on my way," she said, grinning to herself. She hung up, snapping her phone closed.

"What's up?" Bobby asked, forehead wrinkled in concern.

"Not entirely sure," she answered honestly. She was sure Dean would fill her in later. "Something demonic, as usual. I'm heading back to the motel—you coming?"

"I think I'll stay with Pam a little longer. Just call me if you need me."

"Copy that," Alex said, already heading for the door.

"And Alex—" She paused. Bobby looked at her meaningfully. "You be careful."

She made an overly innocent face. "Always am."

He gave her a look—they both knew that was total bullshit. Alex gave him a crooked grin, raised her eyebrows, and left.

* * *

**Late That Night**

The TV was still on, and Alex was half-asleep on the couch, the remote still in her hand. Dean had been reading all evening, and she had been flipping through the channels while Sam had remained in the background, doing something on his laptop for awhile until he announced he was going to bed. Alex was in that place of half-awake, half-asleep, where she wanted to get up and turn the light and TV off, but she was also convinced she would tune those out in a second and fall sleep.

A soft and sudden _click_ startled her awake, and her head shot up, she quickly glanced around, assessing the room. Dean was on his bed, half sitting, a huge book open in his lap as he slept soundly, head lolling on his shoulder. Sam's bed was empty, and she didn't see him anywhere else. Alex got up, creeping toward the door and peeking out just in time to see Sam's unmistakable silhouette turn the corner down the hall. _What the hell?_ Alex was struck with a million sudden suspicions. She glanced back at Dean, who was sleeping peacefully—his face completely relaxed for once. She decided not to wake him up. Sam might just be going to get something from the car, after all. She chided herself for assuming the worst about her twin. Maybe she should cut him a break. Still, she was going to follow and see what he was doing... just to be safe. She darted out of the room, following quickly and quietly down the hotel hallway. She peered around the corner Sam had just rounded. She could see out into the parking lot through the glass door. Sam was getting into the Impala, casting glances around—the picture of guilt. _Not good_. The car started and pulled out of the parking lot, leaving Alex with a sinking feeling. Nope. Something was just _not _right. She didn't like this. She turned around and promptly gasped—Bobby was standing right behind her.

"Shit, Bobby!" She swore, holding a hand over her heart.

"Sorry kiddo. Didn't mean to startle you. I was in my room and heard a noise. Was that Sam?"

"Yeah. H-he snuck out of the room and—what's that?" They both turned at the sound of shattering glass and took off at a run down the hall, where they could now hear Dean screaming, and then a high-pitched shrieking sound that was so intense their vision began to waver. Bobby broke down the door just barely, as Alex stumbled behind, her hands over her ears. Dean was on the floor in a pile of broken glass, his hands over his ears as he screamed against the noise. It was the most intense sound that Alex had ever heard, it reverberated through her entire body like a vibration, made it hard to see. But she stumbled over to Dean, Bobby right before her. And they hauled him up and stumbled out of the room, down the hall, and out of the motel.

* * *

Bobby coaxed more speed out of the car and they sped down the road, not really heading anywhere, just driving fast. He glanced back a lot, looking to see if they'd been followed. Alex rubbed her ears with her palms. They still rang from that loud, glass-shattering noise.

"Yeah, okay, catch you later," Dean said, snapping his cellphone closed and pocketing it, twisting around to look at Alex who was in the back seat. "Sam says he went to get a _burger_."

"Yeah, sure," Alex muttered. The way he had quietly snuck out—the way he'd been looking around like he was afraid he was being followed—she smelled a lie. But, they would have to figure that out later. "Why did you lie to him about what we're doing?" Alex asked.

"Because he'd just try to stop us," Dean replied tersely.

"From what? What are we doing?" Bobby asked, glancing at them both in confusion as he drove.

Alex knew Dean well enough to already have guessed what her brother had in mind—it's what she wanted to do, anyway—and she replied before Dean had a chance. "We're going to summon Casteel and kill it," she said.

"You two want to go after Castle after what he did to Pamela?!" Bobby exclaimed in disbelief.

"_Castiel_," Dean corrected passively.

"Yeah, _whoever_," Alex said. "Whatever his name is, he's dead."

"We're gonna face this asshole head-on, Bobby." Dean explained.

"You two can't be serious!" Bobby was dismayed.

"As a heart-attack," Dean confirmed.

"Bobby, think about it," Alex said, leaning forward in her seat. "This Castiel thing is hounding Dean and our best bet is to take the offensive instead of the defensive."

"We've got the big-time magic knife, you've got an arsenal in the trunk..." Dean trailed off suggestively. Bobby was shaking his head in extreme hesitation. "Now look, you two are assuming it's a demon, but what if it's something else? We might be signing our own death certificates here. This is a _bad_ idea."

"Bobby, whatever this is, whatever it wants, it's after me. That much we know, right? I've got no place to hide. I can either get caught with my pants down again, or we can make our stand."

"We're doing it with or without you, Bobby," Alex said.

"You damn idjits," Bobby sighed heavily. "Well, don't you think we should at least_ tell _Sam in case, you know, we don't come back?"

Dean was quiet for a minute. "No. We'll be back."

Bobby didn't look so sure.

* * *

Several hours later, Alex got up from where she had been crouched, finally done with the last of the warding symbols. Bobby seemed to be finishing up, too. She looked around at their handiwork—the entire abandoned warehouse they had set up shop in was covered floor and ceiling in spray painted symbols and traps. Over at a makeshift table, Dean was chuckling at them. "That's a hell of an art project you've got going there."

"Just call me Picasso," Alex said, tossing an empty can of spray paint onto the table. "Traps and talismans from every faith on the globe," Bobby said, and looked at Dean questioningly. "How you doin'?"

Dean looked over the contents of the table he'd set up. "Stakes, iron, silver, salt, knife. I mean, we're pretty much set to catch and kill anything I've ever heard of."

"What about what we haven't heard of?" Bobby asked, and shook his head. "Uh _huh_, this is _definitely_ still a bad idea."

"I heard you the first ten times," Dean said, not about to change his mind. "What do you say we ring the dinner bell?"

Bobby nodded reluctantly. He went over to the other table and took a pinch of some powder from a bowl, and sprinkled it into a larger bowl, which began to smoke. He began chanting in Latin.

Dean and Alex looked at each other simultaneously. Alex felt the first prick of fear now. Up until this moment she'd just been pissed and ready to kick the ass of whatever hell creature was trying to hurt her brother—this Castiel monster. But now, Bobby's warnings and reluctance replayed in her head. Her older brother winked at her. "Showtime," he said, his mouth lifting up into a crooked smile.

* * *

**Twenty Minutes Later**

The shotguns which had been gripped tightly and vigilantly when Bobby first did the conjuring now laid beside the three hunters, who were beginning to become listless. Alex yawned widely, thinking about sleep and how much she liked it. Beside her, Dean looked at Bobby impatiently. "You sure you did the ritual right?" Bobby gave him a look. Dean snorted. "Sorry, touchy touchy, huh?"

As if on cue, a loud rattling shook the roof of the warehouse, and the building, which had seemed solid a second ago now felt like it might collapse on top of their heads. Immediately on their feet, Dean, Bobby and Alex backed in together, shotguns held tightly as the building continued to tremble.

"Wishful thinking, but maybe it's just the wind?" Dean shouted over the noise.

"Definitely not," Alex shouted back, her shotgun clutched tightly as she stared at the doors at the far end of the warehouse—they were quaking as if they were about to break in two, even though they were bolted shut. At that moment, the lights began to flicker and the doors did indeed swing open, the bolt snapping like it was a twig. The bursting lights overhead began to shower sparks across the entire warehouse, and through the chaos of it all, they could all see the distinct silhouette of a man at the doorway—was this Castiel? He walked in slowly, measuredly, and in between the flickering lights, Alex could see that he was a handsome man in his mid-thirties, dressed in a business suit and a tan trench coat. He walked toward them somewhat stiffly, not blinking even once. His expression was fierce and stony, and even though he looked very ordinary, something about him inspired a sudden reverent fear in Alex—she forgot her shotgun, she forgot herself, she just stood there, staring, terrified, already realizing this was no ordinary demon or monster.

Dean opened fire, and remembering themselves at the sound, Alex and Bobby followed suit—Dean had iron bullets, Bobby had salt rounds, and Alex had silver—the bullets pummeled into him, but the man didn't even stop to wince. He was completely unaffected by the gunshots, none of the traps seemed to have any effect on him, and he kept coming forward, undaunted, his sights set on first Dean, and then Alex.

"Blade!" Dean demanded, and Alex tossed him the demon blade and shrank back behind her older brother. The man stopped in front of them, his blank face now calm and serene. The wind was gone, the sparks had stopped falling, the building was solid and still once again. Alex stared at the man who had done all of that—his blue eyes were piercing, and flickered over her for a fraction of a second before resting on Dean.

"Who are you?" Dean demanded gruffly. Alex could hear from his voice that he was shaken. She glanced down at the knife in his hand at his side—this was their last weapon against this guy. _Please, please work._

"I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition," the man replied, his surprisingly deep, husky voice filled with a confidence and authority that caught Alex off guard even further.

Similarly off balance, Alex felt Dean hesitate, pause. "Yeah... thanks for that," Dean said, and then without any further ado he reared back, and plunged the knife into the man's chest. _And nothing happened_. Looking down at the knife, the man pulled it out, unconcerned, seeming to be a touch amused. Dumbfounded, Dean and Alex gaped.

Bobby, who had slunk back to the side was sneaking up, an iron crowbar raised high—but without even looking, the man grabbed the weapon mid-air effortlessly just as Bobby swung, effectively and easily blocking the strike. Turning, the man touched a very surprised Bobby on the forehead with two fingertips. The Winchesters watched in shocked horror as Bobby's eyes rolled back into his head and he crumpled to the ground, lifeless. "Bobby!" Alex screamed.

The man looked at Alex with a slightly perplexed expression, eyes squinting up a bit, head tilting to the side just a little, as if he didn't understand her reaction. Alex stared back, freaked. He looked at her a little longer, turned his head toward Dean, then his eyes left her.

"We need to talk, Dean," the man said, his eyes went back to Alex meaningfully. "Alone." He made to move forward, his arm outstretched to touch her, and Alex backed up faster than she had in a long time even as Dean darted forward, putting himself between the man and his sister, his expression deadly.

"Touch my sister and you _die_, freak," Dean thundered. "What the hell did you do to Bobby?"

"Dean, you can't kill me. You just tried," the man replied in a reasonable and calm tone. He paused, then withdrew slightly, and seemed to become interested in one of Bobby's open books on the nearby table. "You don't need to worry; your friend is alive and I won't harm any of you."

"Damn straight you won't. Who are you?" Dean demanded. Alex was glued to her brother in terror as she stared at this strange and powerful man who was currently paging through Bobby's book nonchalantly. The man seemed almost disinterested in Dean's question, paging through Bobby's book casually. "Castiel."

"Yeah, I figured that much, I mean _what_ are you?" Dean demanded.

Castiel turned his attention to Dean and approached once again. Alex, a hand on Dean's back, grabbing at his jacket, could feel him tense as Castiel came near. "I'm an angel of the Lord."

Dean and Alex looked at each other, momentarily speechless. "An... _angel_?" Alex repeated, not sure if she heard right. She looked the guy up and down skeptically, and did not come up with angel in any sense—a guy about six feet tall, in an un-tailored, slightly wrinkled trench-coat. His blue tie was slightly askew. He have messy brown hair and a five o'clock shadow. He looked more like a tired fifth-grade teacher than anything else. "You're _serious_?" she asked.

"Yes, of course I'm serious," he replied, deadpan.

"You let me do the talking," Dean hissed at his sister, and fixed Castiel with a dangerous glare. "An angel, _right_. Get the hell out of here. There's no such thing," he spat.

"That is your problem, Dean. You have no faith." Castiel drew in a deep breath and seemed to stand at his full height as lightning flashed _inside_ the warehouse, and huge shadow wings appeared behind Castiel in the flashes.

Stunned into momentary silence, the Winchesters again looked at each other, at a loss for the entire situation. "The hell does that prove?" Alex whispered, and Dean shook his head, whispering back, "The hell if I know."

Dean turned his attention back to the so-called angel in front of them and crossed his arms. "So riddle me this: what kind of angel burns out a poor woman's eyes?"

"I warned her not to spy on my true form," Castiel said. "It can be... overwhelming to humans, and so can my real voice. But you already knew that."

Alex frowned, not understanding, but Dean seemed to have figured it out. "You mean the gas station and the motel. That was you _talking_?" Castiel nodded, to which Dean set his mouth in a hard line. "Buddy, next time, lower the volume."

"That was my mistake," Castiel said woodenly. "Certain people, special people, can perceive my true visage. I thought you would be one of them. I was wrong."

"And what visage are you in now, huh?" Dean asked, looked at the supposed angel cursorily. "What, holy tax accountant?"

"This?" Castiel looked down at himself. "This is... a vessel."

"You're possessing some poor bastard?" Dean asked in disbelief.

Castiel wasn't ruffled. "He's a devout man, he actually prayed for this."

_Some guy prayed for an angel to ride him like the rodeo?_ Alex was more and more suspicious by the second. And apparently, Dean was too.

"Well, I'm not buying what you're selling, so who are you really?" Dean demanded angrily.

"I told you," Castiel said simply.

"Right. And why would an _angel_ rescue me from Hell?"

"Good things do happen, Dean," Castiel said, although his tone lacked conviction.

"Not in my experience," Dean said. Alex heard the weight of his statement and it resonated with her.

"What's the matter?" Castiel's expression changed, as if he had figured it out. "You don't think you deserve to be saved."

Dean seemed shocked by Castiel's statement, his face going blank, and Alex's protective instincts raised up. "Hey," she snapped, stepping out from behind Dean defensively. "He doesn't need you psychoanalyzing him."

Castiel looked at her blankly, unfazed. His eyes were so very, very blue. "I'm simply stating the truth, Alex."

He knew her name. She felt scared all over again, freaked out under his intense stare. Dean was pushing Alex back again, stepping forward to put himself between the supposed angel and his sister. He didn't seem to want to discuss whether or not he thought he deserved to be saved, instead he was getting to what everyone wanted to know. "Why'd you pull me out?"

Castiel was quiet for a moment, his eyes narrowing slightly. Alex got the feeling that whatever he was about to say was important. "Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you."

Dean's eyebrows raised. "Work. _God_ has work for _me_."

"Yes."

Dean laughed a short, biting laugh. "Oh interesting. How's the pay? Good benefits? I'm telling ya, the dental plan I have right now _sucks_."

Castiel frowned slightly. "This is no laughing matter, Dean. My Father has chosen you."

Dean couldn't seem to find any words, disgusted and dumbfounded by the entire exchange. "Chosen him for what?" Alex asked, her voice betraying the fear she was feeling.

Castiel looked at her briefly. "It's complicated. It is not yet your time to know. It is God's will."

"This is freakin' rich," Dean muttered. "You really expect us to believe all this crap you're spewing?"

Castiel looked between the two of them, his face beginning to show annoyance. "Yes." He paused. "What reason do you have to doubt?"

Dean laughed, shook his head, at a loss but at least amused by it. Alex wasn't as amused. She had crossed her arms and fixed this Castiel guy with a doubtful look, momentarily forgetting her fear. "Huh, let's see. You show up out of nowhere and claim you're the one who brought Dean back because _you're _an _angel_. And _angels_ are in fact real even though we've never seen one before or _heard_ of one being seen. And not only are angels real, but _God _needs Dean here for some kind of super-secret mission... I'd say that sums up the 'reasons we have to doubt.'" She said the last part sort of mockingly and he seemed to dislike that. His eyes gazed into hers unflinchingly, and Alex lost some of her bravado, disliking how it felt like he could see through her. Something about him turned her stomach and sent a chill down her spine. His expression cleared a little. "You've learned to use your new voice well, haven't you Alex?" he asked evenly, knowingly. Caught off guard, Alex stared, confused. Castiel almost smiled at her, his dry lips curving upwards just slightly.

He then looked at Dean, became stern once more. "In time, I will be free to reveal more to you. For now, you have to have faith. Both of you." He seemed to hear a sound to his left, and with no grand fanfare, he announced, "I have to go." He looked at Dean, and then Alex, holding her gaze intensely. His voice seemed to get even deeper. "I'll see you again soon." Before they could react, he was gone in the blink of an eye and with a sound like the wind rustling through fabric.

In silence, the siblings looked at each other with stunned expressions. "Dude. Did that really just happen?" Dean asked, his shocked exasperation mirroring how Alex felt.

"Right?! Who _was_ that guy?" Alex looked back at the spot where Castiel had been standing just a minute ago, her mind racing as she tried to put together the pieces. She felt shaken, mind and body. "_Angels_." She muttered, frowning, considering the possibility that angels were actually real.

"You _know_ that's BS," Dean said, daring her to be stupid enough to believe it.

Alex looked at her brother. "But what if it's not?"

Dean didn't look amused. "Oh come _on_."

"I mean the guy had wings," Alex said, then squinted, thought hard. "I _think_."

The pair didn't have a chance to discuss it any further. On the floor, Bobby was groaning. The Winchesters hurried to him, helping him up.

"Uhh," Bobby groaned, dazed. "What happened?"

"Well Bobby, looks like you were just touched by an angel," Dean said, his face stretched into a sardonic smile.

Bobby stared. "Come again?"

* * *

_Author's Note: What did you guys think of this chapter? Oh boy, Castiel is here! The next chapter is going to introduce a whole new mystery... and more Castiel/Alex interaction, plus more Winchester sibling arguments... lol! Please leave a review if you're reading and enjoying._


	5. Haunted and Hunted

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 5 / Haunted and Hunted

_"All the wounds that are ever gonna scar me, for all the ghosts that are never gonna catch me."  
_- My Chemical Romance_  
_

* * *

"So did he _look_ like an angel?" Sam asked, hanging onto every word. Dean was standing, arms crossed, pacing slowly, grumpy. Alex and Sam were sitting at the kitchen table, on opposite sides.

"Nope. No fluffy wings, no halo, no harp music. He just looked like some average guy," Alex said. She was avoiding looking her twin in the eyes, very interested in the coffee mug she cradled in both hands.

"I still can't believe you guys didn't tell me what you were doing last night," Sam said, a note of accusatory bitterness in his voice.

Alex gave him a look. "Well _maybe _if you hadn't snuck off in the middle of the night, we might have—"

"I didn't _sneak off,_ I was trying not to wake you guys. Why do you always assume I'm the bad guy?" He demanded, his voice rising in defensiveness.

"Geez, calm down Sam. Are you PMSing?" Alex rolled her eyes and set the mug down on the table with more gusto than was needed.

"Shut up, you two morons," Dean said, rubbing his temples. "You're getting on my last damn nerve." He was on edge, more frustrated than he had been in awhile. "Maybe he's some kind of super demon or something."

Sam seemed skeptical. "A demon who's immune to salt rounds and devil's traps... and Ruby's knife? Dean, _Lilith_ is scared of that thing."

Getting even more agitated, Dean huffed, picking up the speed of his angry pacing. "Well don't you think that if angels were real, that some hunter somewhere would have seen one... at some point... _ever_?"

"Yeah. _You just did_, Dean," said Sam.

"I mean, maybe angels haven't walked the earth since ancient Biblical times or maybe they erase memories of the people they encounter, or—" Alex started, only to be glared at by Dean.

"Really, you guys? _Really_? I'm not gonna believe that this thing is a freaking angel of the Lord because it says so! It has to be something else, okay?"

"You chuckleheads want to keep arguing religion, or do you want to come take and look at this?" Bobby cut in, and the three of them were slightly chastened—Bobby had been so quiet in his study that they had forgotten he was there. "I got stacks of lore—Biblical, pre-Biblical. Some of it's in damn cuneiform. It all says an angel can snatch a soul from the pit," Bobby said, tapping a page of one of his books emphatically.

Dean crossed his arms, not convinced. "Okay, but what else could have done it?"

"Airlift your ass out of the hot box? As far as I can tell, nothing."

Beside Dean, Sam looked encouraged. "Guys, this is good news. For once, this isn't just another round of demon crap. I mean, maybe Dean was saved by one of the good guys, you know?"

Alex looked at her twin brother sidelong. After meeting Castiel, she wasn't sure if angels _were_ the good guys. He had seemed dangerous, not holy or angelic. However, she kept that thought to herself.

"Okay. Say it's true. Say there are angels. Then what? There's a _God_?" Dean scoffed.

"Geez Dean, can we just figure out angels first,_ then_ God?" Alex asked. She was getting a headache from all this speculation, and was too busy trying to figure angels out to tackle the whole God thing just yet.

"Fine," Dean said grudgingly. "What do we know about angels?"

Bobby got a little smirk on his face. He picked up a tall pile of ancient books and set them down with a loud thunk on the desk in front of Dean. "Start reading."

Dean looked at the pile with resentment, then turned to Sam and Alex, cranky. "One of you clowns is gonna get me some pie."

"I'll do it," Sam said, sighing and grabbing the car keys.

Dean took a book off the top of the pile and had cracked it open like he was angry with it. "Care to join me, Al?" He asked peevishly.

"Love to," she said, hiding a smile at his antics.

And with that, they began paging through the books Bobby had pulled off the shelves. Alex never minded the research part of things. She was good at taking in a lot of information and figuring out how to apply it. And she'd always liked reading ever since she'd learned.

Maybe thirty minutes later, Bobby swore softly as he ended a call on his cell phone. "Damn, she _still _won't answer."

"Who?" Dean asked, ready to be distracted from his reading.

"Olivia. She's a hunter friend of mine one state over. I've been trying to get her since angel-boy made his grand entry—she might have some leads on angels. But now I'm plain worried. It's just not like her not to call me back."

Alex was now interested, too, peering at Bobby over the top of her book. "Do you think she might be in trouble?"

"Yeah," Bobby said, thought a long couple seconds, then stood up restlessly. "I should go check on her."

Dean was already snapping his book shut and standing up, seeming to be happy to find an excuse to get his nose out of the books. "We'll come with."

Alex, looked at Dean with a frown. "But there's research to do." She pointed to the tall stack of books waiting to be combed through.

"We can do it later," Dean retorted. She looked at him a second, then back at the books.

"Why don't you guys go and I'll stay and sort the stacks?" She suggested. Dean, as predicted, didn't like the idea.

"You think I'm gonna let you stay here all by yourself?" He crossed his arms, daring her to fight him on the issue.

Alex looked at him over the top of the book both amused and challenging. "Yes, that's exactly what you're going to do. I'm going to sit here and scour all these books for angel stuff and when you get back in a day or two, I'll be an expert."

"No, I don't want you alone," Dean said. "Sam could stay with you."

Alex's raised her eyebrows. "Um, are you kidding? No."

"Oh come on, aren't you two over your little spat yet?"

Alex felt a genuine pang of sadness, losing a little of her fire momentarily. She stared at the books pages unseeingly. "It wasn't a little spat. It was... not speaking to each other for almost five months."

Dean inhaled heavily, relenting slightly. "Then_ I'll_ stay with you."

At this point Alex softened—he was just trying to look out for her. "Dean—I'll be fine here by myself. You've left me alone tons of times before. You and Bobby and Sam go investigate and I'll do the boring stuff." She jerked her thumb toward the books. He looked at the books with slight distaste, mulling it over.

"She'll be fine here, Dean," Bobby said. "In fact, she might be safer here than with us. This place is basically like Fort Knox."

Reluctantly, Dean agreed. "Yeah. All right."

* * *

**The Next Day**

_In the AD 400s, the Greek philosopher Dionysius the Areopagite described a hierarchy of angels. Based on his writings, angels are traditionally ranked in nine orders. The highest order of angels is the seraphim, followed by the cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, and angels._

_According to this system, the first circle of angels—the seraphim, cherubim, and thrones—devote their time to contemplating God. The second circle—the dominions, virtues, and powers—govern the universe. The third circle—principalities, archangels, and angels—carry out the orders of the superior angels._

Alex looked up from the book she had in front of her and blinked several times, tired and glazed over. She glanced at the clock and realized she had been doing this all day. Scrawled notes on scrap paper were strewn all over the desk, and several volumes were open. She rolled her shoulders, sore from hunching over and reading. Her head was now packed full of angel mythology and lore, but she couldn't be sure what parts were real or not. It was mostly speculation and hearsay, but if Alex had learned one thing being raised in the hunter life, it was that most myths and legends came from an element of truth; sometimes a large element of truth, sometimes small. She didn't feel like telling Dean, but she was beginning to believe that Castiel really was what he said. There didn't seem to be anything else he _could_ be. However, it was disappointing as she had pictured angels to be... different. As glowy, poetic, gentle and soothing beings with fluffy white wings. Not as... a somewhat robotic invincible guy who showed up and knocked out your friends then told you God had work for you.

She briefly remembered Castiel's promise: "I'll see you again soon." In his deep voice and under his piercing gaze, the words had seemed almost like a threat. She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

She shook her head tiredly and decided it was time for some coffee. She got up and cranked up Bobby's ancient coffee maker in the kitchen, and that's when she thought of Dad's journal—maybe it had some kind of clue to angels. Maybe she could find something there. She left the coffee brewing and went into Bobby's guest room—her room for the past few months. The small room had a bed, a dresser, and an old mirrored bureau. Her oversized duffel bag was plunked onto the bureau. She had never been in the habit of unpacking clothes, ever, as almost every day they were leaving the place they had been the day before.

Alex dug through the beat up duffel in search of the journal. All of her worldly possessions were right here—old socks, torn jeans, and few faded t-shirts (some were Dean's old band shirts from middle school), the odd knick-knack or memento. The whistle on hemp cord she used to wear around her neck (Dad insisted, so she could always whistle for help), an oversized manilla envelope of some of her old notebooks she had used to talk to people with (her one-sided conversation collection, she called it). Her fingers bumped up against a small square of paper in the bottom of the duffel bag, and momentarily forgetting her journal hunt, she pulled it out, turning over the yellowing envelope in her hands. "Family pictures" was scrawled across the front in Dad's handwriting. There was only one photo inside.

It was a picture of Mom standing out in the yard, holding her baby twins, one in each arm on her hips. She was smiling broadly. The twin on the right was staring blankly into the camera, and the twin on the left was chewing on his or her hand—Alex wasn't sure which one was her. Little Dean was standing beside Mom, arms at his sides, squinting at the camera. Alex searched her mother's face in the photo, trying to remember her. But she didn't, not at all. She wondered who had taken the photo. It had probably been Dad, since he wasn't in the picture. Or, he might have been gone at the time... that would match up with the rest of her life.

Alex tucked the photo back into the envelope and pulled out the journal from where it was nestled in the bottom of her duffel. The familiar shape and weight of it always brought bittersweet feelings to her. She had been writing down some of their latest travels and encounters for the past few years, ever since Dad disappeared and then died. Seeing the page where Dad's handwriting ended and hers began always brought a moment of somber reflection.

The sound of her phone ringing in the study shook her from her thoughts and she hurried to answer it, journal in hand.

"Hey Dean," she greeted.

"Alex," he said, and even from that single word, she knew something was wrong. "You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. What is it?" She set the journal down on the study desk, listening intently.

"Something freaky," he said. "Some kind of vengeful spirit on steroids. A bunch of hunters this way are dead—I mean _ripped apart_ dead. And Sammy just got attacked in the friggin' bathroom of this random gas station by the ghost of Henriksen."

"_What_?!" Alex's chest clenched in panic. "Oh my God—is he okay?"

"He's fine. No thanks to me. I should have called you sooner, but I had no idea these spirits were mobile."

Alex stopped, frowned, confused. "But... ghosts can't just show up where they want. How is that even possible for Henriksen's ghost to be at a random gas station?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out. Bobby should be back to you before we are, maybe a couple hours. We're a little further out. Get the salt, get the iron, blockade yourself in, you got it? I'm pretty sure all hunters are targets right now."

Alex pictured her brothers, far away from her and being hunted by vengeful ghosts, and her stomach turned in pain. "Damn. Okay, you guys be careful. I'll be fine."

She heard a heavy, gusty breath. "You better be." He sounded pissed at himself. "I knew I shouldn't have let you stay behind."

"Dean, relax. I'm gonna go get the salt and iron now." Alex paused, thinking of Sam getting attacked. She swallowed, cleared her throat. "And, uh, tell Sam I, uh... love him."

Dean paused a little awkwardly. "Uh, okay. See you soon."

"And Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"I, uh, loveyoutoo." She hung up fast, not giving him a chance to reply. She wasn't super into expressing her feelings. It had felt necessary right then, but it still left her feeling highly awkward. She let out a breath and shook herself.

She began scrolling through her contacts to call Bobby and see how far away he was. Eyes glued to the phone, she turned around. But when she bumped up against a solid form, she shrieked, jumped back, and dropped the phone all at once, staring at the person in front of her in complete shock.

Unblinkingly, Castiel looked back at her, appearing just the same as he had the other night—trench coat, business suit, wild hair, blank expression. "You're not safe here," he announced, and reached out for her.

"Whoa don't _touch_ me!" Alex warned, jumping back, her heart hammering from adrenaline.

He looked slightly irked at her reaction. "Alex, if I wanted to hurt you, you wouldn't be able to stop me," he said.

"Well that sure as hell wouldn't stop me from _trying_, angel wings."

His eyes narrowed just slightly, as if he didn't understand. "My name is Castiel, not angel wings."

She paused for a beat, thrown off. "Uh, yeah, I get that," she said tersely, "now go away."

He seemed mildly perplexed. "I don't have time for this. Take my hand."

Alex, a little unsure of the entire exchange, was growing more confused by the second. "I don't _know_ you, Castiel. I'm not going anywhere with you, okay? And by the way, I don't seem to remember asking for a guardian angel—shouldn't you be bugging Dean about becoming a servant of God? He's not even here."

Castiel ignored her attitude. "I know that. I've been ordered to protect you."

Alex could have done a double take at that admission. "..._What_? Why? Since when?"

"The reason why was not made known to me," he replied with no emotion. "Something about you makes you important to my father."

"Me? _Me_?" Alex shook her head, feeling extremely suspicious. This just didn't feel right. First Dean, and now her? This was getting ridiculous.

"Yes, you," Castiel replied. He held out his hand again, but she stood her ground, silently refusing. A muscle jerked in his cheek—was that impatience? "I won't force you to come with me. But I highly advise you to. You're in grave danger."

"I'm _always_ in grave danger," she countered sarcastically, to which his frown deepened slightly. "I told you. I don't want your help—get lost. I'm not gonna say it again."

He stared at her for a couple seconds blankly. "Fine," he said, and in a blink of the eye, he was gone, leaving Alex in shocked silence. _What... the... hell._

Remembering Dean's phone call and her promise to arm herself, she turned to go downstairs where all the weapons were—and not only them, but the panic room she and Bobby had built two months ago—but before she could take a single step, the radio suddenly turned on, crackling on white noise. Alex slowly looked over at the radio, her blood beginning to pump through her quicker. The lights flickered on and off, once, then twice. And then, she felt it. The room had gone cold—ice cold. She exhaled, her breath a small cloud in front of her. "Ah _crap_," she whispered, cursing herself for not grabbing a weapon already. She could feel a strange presence behind her, and she swallowed nervously. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing straight up. Alex braced herself, turning around slowly, unsure of who would be standing there, just knowing she was in the presence of a ghost.

A small young woman with dark hair and delicate features gazed back at her. She was dressed modestly, her hair parted precisely and braided neatly to the side. A small silver cross hung around her neck. Recognition dawned on Alex. "N-Nancy?"

"Hello, Alex," said Nancy. She looked very pretty, even with the pale, cool cast that death had left on her ghost. Alex recalled with growing horror that Nancy had been one of Lilith's most recent victims—killed mercilessly after helping Alex and her brothers narrowly escape the clutch of death.

Alex swallowed. "You, uh... don't look so good," she said lamely.

"Yeah, well, death does strange things to a girl," Nancy replied, her voice too cheerful and too pleasant, resulting in a strange, sinister quality.

"I'm... sorry you died," Alex offered honestly, even as she was trying to think of what nearby would work as a weapon.

"Me too," Nancy said with dramatic sadness, and she sighed. "It was the worst pain I ever experienced." She became more somber, the air of theatre leaving her voice in favor of dark anger. "Lilith flayed my skin off me, bit by bit. It was agony—pure agony. Where were _you_? You should have saved me. I needed to be _saved_."

Alex felt herself grimacing, knowing exactly where this was going. She was slowly, slowly edging sideways and backward, where she knew the iron fireplace tools rested. "I died a virgin, you know," Nancy said sadly. Her eyes seemed to darken, and a menacing little smile crept across her face, and her voice went soft and sing-song. "And so will you."

Alex's stomach lurched in total surprise and she froze. "How the hell do you know—" she stammered, and Nancy smirked, rolling her eyes. Alex was dumbfounded and mortified, and set off balance by the knowledge that this random vengeful ghost knew her most humiliating secret.

"Oh, Alex, you're so _precious_. I know everything about you. How you feel so inadequate and long so _badly_ for a chance to prove yourself to your brothers, and for a chance to be noticed by the big, beautiful world out there..." Nancy smirked, clearly enjoying Alex's horrified expression. "Poor little Alexandra, she never did have friends like the other little kids, did she? I mean, who wanted to be seen with the weird little silent girl? Every new school, same old story... how did it feel to be ignored and written off your whole childhood?" Nancy laughed. "And _forget_ the possibility of a boyfriend... what did _you_ have to offer?" She cocked her head to the side. "The same thing you have now. _Nothing_."

Alex's insides burned from anger and shame as Nancy continued on, digging her verbal barbs with obvious pleasure. "No one liked you then, because you were defective. And no one likes you now, either, because even though some power-that-be restored your voice, you're still the same. Broken. Weird." Out of the corner of Alex's eye, to her left just a bit more near the fireplace, was the fire poker and shovel. She wet her lips, wondering if she could make it. It was now or never.

"You're a total _freak_," Nancy announced, pleased with the verbal whipping she had just delivered.

"Look who's talking, bitch," Alex spat back. Nancy's expression turned to stone, and Alex seized that moment to lunge and grab the iron fire poker. She wildly swung it like a baseball bat at the space that Nancy's apparition occupied. The ghost's image seemed to dissolve into the air.

"Ouch," Nancy said, giggling, and Alex whirled to see Nancy standing behind her, looking smug. "You know, the night I died at the police station, I really appreciated you speaking up and offering yourself instead of me, Alex. Oh wait... that's _right_! You _didn't_," her expression became deadly for a moment, before she resumed speaking in her perky, enthusiastic tone. She advanced on Alex slowly. "I mean, two virgins in one place... what are the _odds_, right? You coward. You could have saved us _all_." The clock struck three in Bobby's study behind them. "Well well well, look at the time. It's your turn to die."

Alex again swiped the poker wildly and Nancy's apparition melted into the air, but then reappeared behind Alex and slammed her across the room, smashing her face-first into the kitchen counter where she and a bunch of stuff from on the counter tumbled to the ground. Alex groaned, pain blossoming in her ribcage as she struggled to get up. Rolling to a stop near her foot was a large can of kosher salt. Alex snatched the can up despite the stabbing pain in her ribs. Nancy was approaching slowly, her expression enraged. Without even touching her, Nancy flipped Alex around wildly, like a rag doll, and sent her slamming back to the floor, face down. There was a horrible cracking sound as her chin hit the floor, and Alex screamed in pain, only just managing to hold onto the can of salt. Nancy began dragging Alex, who was opening the top of the salt in clumsy desperation, the blinding pain overwhelming her motor skills. She jerked the can hard over her shoulder, sending a huge spray of salt backwards at Nancy. Weakened, Nancy flickered out for a few seconds, giving Alex enough time to scramble to her feet and run, staggering, to the basement, down the stairs, and toward the iron panic room. All without sight or sound of Nancy—until Alex rounded the corner and saw Nancy standing in front of the door of the panic room, grinning wickedly. "Running from your problems is never a true solution, now is it?"

Again, she sent Alex flying backwards at full force. Alex crashed hard into the staircase, sideways—more pain exploded in her side and Alex heard screams of agony—then realized they were her own. She crumpled to the ground onto all fours, barely able to breathe from the shooting pain in her ribcage. She was still gripping the can of salt in one hand for dear life. She saw Nancy's feet in front of her, and then felt the ghost lifting her by two fistfuls of Alex's jacket. "_You. Should. Have. Saved. Me!_" Nancy roared, all the former playfulness gone and replaced with sheer rage. Wheezing and gasping for air against the pain, Alex turned her hand and shook the entire remaining contents of the salt container onto Nancy's apparition, and she fell to the ground as the apparition dissolved, shrieking in anger. With a speed she hadn't know she possessed, Alex raced the final few steps, yanked the door of the panic room open, and slammed it behind her, shaking violently. Adrenaline fading, she collapsed into a sprawled sitting position on the floor, barely able to breathe—were her ribs broken? Were her lungs punctured? She could barely see from the pain. She wrapped her arms around herself, teeth gritted in torment. She could taste blood in her mouth and her chin and jaw felt broken, shooting pains were running through her entire face and neck.

"Oh _Aleeeex_," came Nancy's sing song voice on the other side of the wall. "Don't mind me. I'll just wait out here for you. I have_ allllll_ day, Alex. And when your brothers get here to save you..." she laughed, a soft, haunting sound full of foreboding.

Alex sobbed, gasping. It was like breathing through a straw. She wondered if she were dying—her chest felt strange and heavy, and the world was spinning oddly in front of her. She was going to pass out soon, she was pretty sure. She'd passed out enough times in her lifetime to recognize the horrible lead-up.

"I told you there was danger," came a deep voice, and Alex swore in surprise, flailing backwards up against the wall and almost fell over as she looked up into the grim face of Castiel. He crouched down in front of her. "Hold still," he commanded.

"W-what are you going to—"

"Trust me, Alex." He looked into her eyes and she went still and stared at him, breathless and pained and unsure. His face had an _actual expression_ on it. He seemed imploring, vaguely concerned. He held her gaze a moment longer, then his hand, warm and solid, came to rest over the area just above her stomach, and warm white light came out of his hand. Underneath his hand and inside her muscles, bones, skin, she could feel a strange and fiery sensation. Not unpleasant, but so foreign that she didn't know how to process it. She looked at his hand there on her stomach, the light glowing beneath it, then back at him—he was looking at his hand in intense concentration. When the light died away, Alex realized all the pain in her ribs was gone, that she could breathe fine. Stunned, she looked at him in a new kind of awe, unable to hide her surprise. There, again, was that almost-smile he'd given her the other day. His hand came up to cup her chin, his thumb lightly resting on the center of it and she jumped slightly at the unexpected touch of his warm, big hand. Again, warm light, a fiery sensation, then no pain. She stared at his face, really looking at him. He was handsome, more handsome than she remembered noticing before.

"T-thank you…?" Alex fumbled, and he held her gaze unflinchingly.

"You're welcome," he said, his deep voice sending chills up her spine again. His hand then fell away, but his intense gaze did not. Alex suddenly felt that he was too close. As if he read her mind, he stood and offered her a hand. Usually she never would have accepted the help, but a little awed by the man—no, angel—who had just saved her life, she took the hand and stood. However, she would immediately regret it.

Even before she had finished standing, she heard a strange, metallic clicking and felt something cold snap onto her wrist—handcuffs?! Castiel locked the other half onto the gun rack that was bolted into the wall. "Hey—what the hell?" Alex exclaimed in alarm. "What are you doing?! Take this off of me!"

"I just saved your life," he replied, as if commenting on the weather. "Twice." He held up a small silver key, showing it to her, and then placed it on the little desk at the other end of the room, far from her reach. "Do not leave this room. You'll be safe here."

"_Hey_!" But he was gone again, leaving Alex frantically tugging at the handcuffs.

"Castiel! _CASTIEL_!" she shouted as she rattled the cuffs in desperation—but he didn't reappear, and no answer came to her screams. She had no phone, was surrounded by ghosts, and was locked in the basement where Bobby couldn't hear. She was unable to warn anyone in any way. She yanked at her restraints again, howling in frustration. "Son of a_ bitch_!"

* * *

_Author's Note: Whew, crazy chapter! Poor Alex getting kicked around by Nancy, verbally and physically. What did you guys think of this chapter? I welcome concrit and of course even an "I liked it, keep going!" review is awesome._

_Also, just wanted to let my readers know I have a very purposeful reason for Castiel being assigned as a protector to Alex. It may not be revealed for awhile, but please know I'm going to explain it sooner or later! But, probably later ;)_


	6. Panic Room Blues

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 6 / Panic Room Blues

_"Please, I know it's hard to believe, and to see a perfect forest through so many splintered trees."  
_- Poe_  
_

* * *

After shouting herself hoarse and no sign of Castiel (or anyone, for that matter), Alex finally gave up and resorted to fuming about being handcuffed to the gun rack. She wanted to be thankful for being so miraculously healed—she was pretty sure she had been dying before Castiel had touched her—but knowing her brothers and Bobby would be walking into a deathtrap with no warning had left her completely steeped in fearful anger. For awhile, she tried to get the handcuffs off, at first by grabbing a shotgun to maybe shoot the chain in half—but as her luck would have it, none of the guns in her reach were loaded and the ammo was on the other side of the room where she couldn't get to it. She tried awkwardly pounding at the chain of the cuffs with the butt of the gun, but that didn't work either. No amount of tugging or twisting did anything to the chain or to the rack. She felt her head for bobby pins—she hadn't put one in for weeks, but she was desperate, thinking _maybe _there was one there, and if there were, _maybe _she could use it to pick the lock. No such luck. After awhile, she was forced to give up trying escape. Angry tears pricked her eyes as she realized she was completely helpless and stuck.

Habitually, she began to say a prayer for help—it was a impulse she had retained from childhood, Sam had sometimes prayed aloud for her—then Alex stopped short, appalled. It had been, after all, a supposed angel of God who had handcuffed her there and then left her without help. She wanted to scream—she had not imagined angels to be like this. Becoming despondent, she resigned herself to the fact that she just had to wait and hope that Bobby and her brothers would be able to make it down to her before any more ghosts attacked.

She fiddled with the ring on her index finger in frustration—it was Dad's silver wedding band. Even though her mom had been dead for all but six months of Alex's life, she had never seen Dad without the ring. When he died, Sam and Dean gave it to her. After getting it resized, it had never left her hand.

Dad had been many things. Negligent as a parent was one of them. He had been gone for a lot of long periods, missed important things and moments, placed Dean in the unfair position of parent to Sam and Alex, had constantly disappointed his children day in and day out. He'd saved their lives countless times—but had also endangered their lives countless times. But one thing he'd never done was leave forever. Over the years, Alex had come to view that as loyalty. Still, Alex had often wondered if she'd missed out on something—she'd seen a lot of kids as they passed through town after town, kids who had parents who seemed so involved in their children's lives, so caring and present. She _had_ never and _would_ never know what that was like. She had a lot of pain associated with the memory of her dad, a lot of confusion and deep, raw wounds. She left them alone, because ignoring them was easiest. She wasn't sure why she still wore the wedding band, but taking it off didn't seem to make sense, either.

When she was eighteen and Sam left for college, things had changed. For the worse in some ways, and the better in others—Dad seemed to have some kind of wakeup call, and for the next few years, had finally included Alex in most of the jobs they did and _finally_ treated her somewhat like an adult. She sometimes wondered if he had replaced Sam with her, but she'd never gotten up the courage to write him and ask about it—she had just been so glad to finally be _doing_ something. Instead of being left behind in a motel or being the getaway driver or doing long-range surveillance, she was a full-fledged part of the family business and had finally seen her dad more than once every few weeks. She got to know Dad pretty well those last few years. They still hadn't been that close—it was hard to be close to a father who had hurt you and been absent for so much of your life—but they were making tiny little steps toward maybe, possibly undoing a lifetime of damage. Then, he had disappeared.

Alex wasn't sure how to describe the way she felt about Dad. She wished she had known him better, hated some of the things he had done and not done, desperately loved him and idolized him for other things. She wished he could have heard her speak. Just once. Never being able to actually speak with your father wasn't fair. But then again, none of her life had been. Losing him was one of the greatest pains in her life, and also one of her greatest reminders of why she chose to be a hunter. Because she refused to allow his life and legacy to be wasted. The world was in short supply of those willing to face and fight the undead.

She heard noise outside the door and tensed. If it were anyone besides her brothers or Bobby... but the door creaked open and Bobby was peering in, then upon seeing her, exclaiming, "The hell...?"

With Bobby were two familiar faces. "Oh my God—" Sam rushed to her, aghast. "What happened? Why are you—"

"Who did this?" Dean thundered, looking for someone to rip the head off of.

"Are you guys okay?" Alex asked, standing up and yanking at her handcuffs, anxiously motioning to the table where the key was. "Get these off of me," she begged.

"Alex, who did this?" Sam repeated Dean's question, clearly pissed as hell. She shocked everyone when she told them, "Castiel." Dean, who had the key, fiddled with the lock and the tiny key as she tried to explain everything quickly to the very angry looking men. "He—I—he showed up and told me I was in danger, that God told him that he was supposed to protect me, I told him get lost, Nancy's ghost attacked me and almost killed me, I made it in here, Castiel magically healed me, and then handcuffed me to the damn gun rack." The handcuffs fell off as Dean finally succeeded and Alex sighed in relief. "Long story short, I'm fine. What about you guys?"

Sam had a gash above his eye, Bobby looked shaken up, Dean looked more tense than usual. Dean ignored her question. "He told you he was assigned to _protect _you?" Dean asked, skeptical. "And he _healed _you?" Sam repeated. Both of them sounded totally flabbergasted. Sam looked around as if noticing the room for the first time. "And Bobby, is this a _panic room_?!"

Bobby shrugged modestly and Dean glanced at him briefly. "Bobby. You're awesome." His gaze was back on Alex now, and he looked severe. He got very pissy when he felt uninformed. "But more to the point, you need to tell us exactly what happened here, Al. Now."

Alex explained in more detail as fast as she could everything that had happened—recounted Castiel's bizarre appearance and speech about protection, Nancy's attack (she left out the details of Nancy's exact words to her), Castiel's reappearance and how he had healed her with just two touches, and then the handcuffing. Needless to say, her brothers were not pleased about that. Dean was straight up pissed, while Sam tried to come up with some theories on the reasoning behind Castiel restraining Alex. Not wanting to dwell on it, Alex demanded they fill her in on their end of everything. Basically, after finding other hunters shredded by ghosts, then Sam's attack in the bathroom, the three men had realized something was after hunters in particular and hurried back. Bobby had made it first and been trapped by some angry little girl's spirits in the salvage yard until Sam had managed to get him free. Dean had been looking for Alex when he too was confronted by the spirit of Henriksen.

"When we first got here and couldn't find you anywhere... we thought maybe they got you," Sam said. His voice hitched slightly, and Alex finally met her twin's gaze for the first time in months without glaring or frowning. She was reminded of how much she really did love him and how guilty she felt about the crap status of their relationship lately. She looked away, not comfortable. "I was just pretty freaked that I couldn't get out of here to warn you," she replied. She thought about losing one or both of them again and couldn't bear it.

"Well, we're all in one piece. But I think we're all lucky to still be breathing," Dean said. It was what they were all thinking.

Bobby, who had settled at his little desk with a book, looked up at her. "Kids, can we continue this conversation over some arts 'n crafts? We need to get some salt and iron rounds ready. Can't stay in this little room forever."

The Winchesters set to work prepping the rounds quietly. Alex shared some of the highlights of her angel mythos research—angels appeared in most major mythologies and religions, angels always came with the assumption of a God in charge of them, they had powers of healing and were somewhere between corporeal and not. Dean listened with a sour expression on his face, and when she concluded, there was a long silence as everyone digested.

"So, if angels are real, then God is too." Dean muttered, seemingly to himself. Another long silence passed. "No. See, this is why I can't get behind God."

"Huh?" Sam asked.

"If he doesn't exist, fine. Bad crap happens to good people. That's how it is. There's no rhyme or reason—just random, horrible, evil—I get it, okay. I can roll with that. But if he is out there, what's wrong with him? Where the hell is he while all these decent people are getting torn to shreds? How does he live with himself? You know, why doesn't he _help_?"

"That's what you and every other philosopher _ever _wants to know," Alex said, shoving more rock salt into the shell she was holding. Sam remained in silent discomfort, mulling over Dean's rant.

"Found it," Bobby said, breaking the silence.

"Found what?" Sam asked.

"The symbol you saw—the brand on the ghosts... it's the Mark of the Witness."

"What symbol?" Alex asked. Bobby held up the page and tapped a strange little symbol there.

"I saw it on Henriksen," Sam explained. "On his wrist. Did Nancy have one?"

Alex frowned. She hadn't seen it, but Nancy's skin had been covered up entirely except for her hands, part of her neck, and face. "She might have—I didn't notice it though."

"Well, it's the mark of the unnatural," Bobby explained. "None of them died what you'd call ordinary deaths. See, these ghosts—they were forced to rise. They woke up in agony. They were like rabid dogs. It ain't their fault. Someone rose them... on purpose."

"Who would do that?" Sam asked.

"Do I look like I know? But whoever it was used a spell so powerful it left a mark, a brand on their souls. Whoever did this had big plans. It's called 'the rising of the witnesses.' It figures into an ancient prophecy."

Intrigued, Alex stopped loading rounds.

"From where?" Dean asked, his tone decidedly suspicious.

"Well, the widely distributed version's just for tourists, you know. But long story short—the book of Revelations. This is a sign, kids."

"A sign of what?" Sam and Dean chorused.

Bobby cleared his throat. "The apocalypse."

Silence. Everyone stared at Bobby, wondering if he were joking. Dean broke the silence. "Apocalypse? The _apocalypse_, apocalypse? The four horsemen, pestilence, five-dollar-a-gallon-gas apocalypse?

"No, the other one," Bobby said sarcastically. "Yes, that one. The rise of the witnesses is a—I dunno, a mile marker."

"Okay, so what do we do?" Sam asked. He sounded dazed.

"Road trip. Grand Canyon, Star Trek Experience. Bunny Ranch." Dean said, getting a dirty look from Sam and an eye roll from Alex.

"First things first," Bobby said. "How about we survive our friends out there? This here's a spell," he indicated the paper in front of him, "to send the witnesses back to rest. Should work."

"_Should._ Great." Sam commented wryly.

"If I translate it correctly. I think I got everything we need here at the house."

"Any chance you got everything we need here in this room?" Dean asked a little hopefully.

"So, you thought our luck was gonna start now all of a sudden?" Bobby said. "Spell's got to be cast over an open fire."

"The fireplace in the study?" Alex asked reluctantly.

"Bingo."

"That's just not as appealing as a, uh, ghost-proof panic room, you know?" Dean looked uncharacteristically nervous.

"Nope," Bobby said, and snapped the book shut and put it under his arm. "Everyone load up a shotgun."

* * *

They almost didn't succeed in casting the spell and sending the ghosts back. It was like the entire house had been possessed—angry spirits seemed to be around every corner—familiar faces of people who had died when the Winchesters had gotten involved in their lives. After fighting their way to the study and salt-circling themselves in, Bobby had sent Sam after a hex box upstairs and Dean into the kitchen for ingredients. Alex and Bobby could see Dean from where they were, but when the ghost attacks became more violent, Alex had raced up the stairs, afraid for Sam who was by himself.

She stopped short at the top of the stairs when she heard a female voice around the corner and down the hallway "...what you're doing with that demon, Ruby..." Alex's breath seemed to stop and she shrank back, confused. "How many innocent bodies has Ruby burned through for kicks?" the voice continued. A voice she recognized as the demon Meg. "How many girls just like me? And you don't send her back to Hell? _You're a monster!_" There was a pause, and then Alex jumped when a rifle blast sounded. _Holy shit_, was Sam paling around with the demon Ruby? Alex turned and ran back down the stairs, shaken to the core. Downstairs, she found Henriksen's ghost attempting to rip Dean's heart out. She blasted through the ghost with her shotgun and dragged a rattled Dean back to the salt circle, where Sam had just returned. With all four of them together, the angry spirits were drawn like flies to honey.

They _barely_ survived the following attack and just _barely_ managed to cast the spell in time to save their own skin.

* * *

The four hunters were exhausted, sore, and in shock after battling so many ghosts at once. Bobby had retired to his room to rest (one does tend to need a little time after a ghost attempts to rip out your internal organs) and Dean declared he was going to take a damn shower. This left the twins to themselves. Pretty much as soon as they were alone, Alex had demanded that Sam follow her outside.

She led him in stony silence to the junk yard, and turned on him, not bothering to hide her anger. "What's up?" He asked in a guarded tone, looking at her cautiously. He was already on defensive, his hands shoved in his pockets.

"_What's up_? Sam, why don't you tell me why Meg seemed to think you are still palling around with Ruby—you told Dean that Ruby was _dead_." Alex was struggling to keep her voice calm at this point. "Is Ruby still alive, Sam?"

Sam swallowed, clearly surprised. "You heard that." He cleared his throat and shrugged his shoulders, trying nonchalance. "Well, Meg's ghost lied. She was just making stuff up to try and get me mad."

Alex was beside herself, incredulous. That made no sense at all. "Sam, Nancy knew everything about me. _Everything_. Why would Meg lie?"

Sam was getting irritated. "Well I don't know what to tell you, what Meg said isn't true."

"Stop _lying_!" Alex shouted, completely losing her cool at this point. "How the hell can you lie to my damn face like that, huh? I _know_ what I heard! What is with you, Sam?" She was so angry that she was shaking. "You've been acting all kinds of weird ever since Dean got back and sneaking off and—"

Sam cut her off, short on patience. "Okay, Alex look, fine! Yeah, Ruby helped me out for awhile after I left you and Bobby. What's the big freaking deal?"

"_Helped you out_?"

"Yeah, like before. She helped me track stuff down and look for ways to bring Dean back. Uh, I lost touch with her like a month ago I guess." Sam sighed loudly, taking a minute and regulating. He was beginning to look genuinely sorry instead of just pissed. "Alex—please try and understand... I was in a dark place. I lost my big brother. And I lost my little sister, too." He was trying to give her one of those sad puppy faces he did, but she crossed her arms and looking away. "I did all kinds of crazy crap," Sam continued desperately. "But Dean's back and I'm on the straight and narrow! Promise."

Alex looked at him again, in the eye. He looked hopeful and vulnerable, like he really meant what he'd said. Looking at her twin—a person she was supposed to be close to, to be able to trust—she felt her heart sinking. She really didn't know him anymore. She shook her head, overwhelmed and unsure how they had come to this. "I can't tell when you're telling the truth anymore." She spoke the words softly, but when she said them, he looked like he'd been hit by a ton of bricks. Maybe he realized what she just had.

He grew stoic, the hopefulness he'd had a moment before gone. When he spoke again, he avoided looking at her. "Look. Can you just not tell Dean about this? He's not too happy with me right now and this would just make it worse."

"You aren't kidding," she said, voice drenched in bitterness.

Sam was beginning to beg now. "Please, Alex. How many times have I covered for you in the past? I'll tell him, soon. I promise."

Alex was disappointed, angry, heartbroken, and over the conversation. "Yeah, fine. You tell him. Cuz if you don't, I will." She turned around and began to walk away, her world yet again shattered. She took a few steps, then his voice stopped her.

"Alex—are you and I ever going to be… okay again?"

She paused. She didn't turn around, because she didn't want him to see the tears in her eyes. "I don't know right now," she answered honestly, and went back into the house.

* * *

Dean and Sam crashed in the living room late that night after going through Alex's notes on all the angelic crap she'd sifted through when they had been gone gone. Alex had shut herself in the guest room hours and hours ago, clearly not happy about something or another. Dean knew she'd come around. She always did.

Dean listened to the sound of Sam's deep, even breathing and smiled to himself. Down the hall, Alex was asleep in her room. Even though his brother and sister were in rare form right now, having them near him again was so much more comforting than he wanted to admit. When he had gotten out of the shower, he'd found Sam sulking in the study on his laptop, clearly wanting to be left alone... and Alex had been out in the junk yard nonchalantly smashing old car headlights with a hammer. Funny how his siblings chose to deal with their latest near death experience. But, their prerogative.

Dean laid awake for a long time, trying to decide if he could believe in angels or not. He believed in demons, he _knew_ those suckers were real... but he wasn't so sure about angels. Dean's mind turned to his years in Hell. To his brother and sister, it had been a little under five months. It had been _so much longer_ there for him. He ground his teeth as he tried not to think of the pain, the torment, the utter hopelessness he had endured. He suddenly woke, a little confused, not even realizing he had been asleep. Sam was still sleeping deeply on the couch, and silver slats of moonlight lined the floor. The house was silent.

Dean sat up, looking around, feeling like he was being watched. That's when he saw a familiar silhouette in the kitchen. Dean got up, on guard, and silently went into the kitchen, where Castiel leaned casually up again the kitchen counter. He looked exactly like he had before. "Excellent job with the witnesses," Castiel said, not bothering with pleasantries.

"You knew about that?" Dean asked. He shouldn't have been surprised. "You know, a heads up would have been nice. Oh and thanks a _whole _lot for handcuffing my sister to the damn wall. What was that all about?"

"I saved her life," Castiel said without batting an eye.

"By trapping her in a panic room?" Dean demanded gruffly.

Castiel looked at him for several beats. "If I hadn't made sure she stayed in that room, Nancy's spirit would have killed her easily when Alex left the room to assist you. It was a certainty." Castiel's mouth twitched as if in impatience. "I didn't enjoy having to restrain your very stubborn sister. If she had just listened, it would have been much more pleasant." He looked at Dean almost contemptuously. "You're welcome."

Dean smirked slightly. That was Alex—stubborn as hell. But, he supposed he did have to give Castiel credit for one thing and his smirk fell. "Yeah, she, uh, told me about your magical healing powers. I guess I do owe you one." But, Dean wasn't going to let Castiel leave without finding out more about one very, very troublesome claim. "You wanna tell me exactly why you told her you were assigned to protect her?"

"Because it's the truth. God commanded it."

Dean's big brother hackles were definitely raised. He didn't like the sound of this. "What could God possibly want her for?"

Castiel shook his head slightly, disinterested. "I wasn't given a reason, nor do I need one. I do what is commanded of me."

"So where the hell were you when she was getting kicked around by Nancy in the first place? And, hey, I could have used a hand myself—I almost got my heart ripped out of my chest!"

"But you didn't." Castiel's stoic attitude and expression were getting on Dean's last nerve and he was past the point of caring whether he offended the dude or not.

"I thought angels were supposed to be, I dunno... fluffy wings, halos—you know, Michael Landon. Not _dicks_."

"Read the Bible. Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier."

Dean laughed, in a short, incredulous huff of air. "Then why didn't you fight? And where the hell is God, anyway, if he even exists? I'm not convinced. 'Cause if there's a God, what the hell is he waiting for, huh? Genocide? Monsters roaming the earth? The freaking _apocalypse?_ At what point does he lift a damn finger and help the poor bastards that are stuck down here?"

Castiel's gaze faltered and he looked away. Almost reluctantly, he said, "The Lord works..."

"If you say 'mysterious ways,' so help me, I will kick your ass." Dean growled. "So, Bobby was right... about the witnesses. This is some kind of a... sign of the apocalypse."

"That's why we're here," Castiel said. _We_. So there were more of these idiots. Just great. "The rising of the witnesses is one of the sixty-six seals."

"Okay. I'm guessing that's not a show at SeaWorld." The joke was lost on Castiel, who didn't seem to understand the reference. In fact, his expression had gone from mostly blank to introspective.

"Those seals are being broken by Lilith. And even though you sent the witnesses back, the seal was broken."

"And that did what?" Dean asked. Castiel's almost worried expression was disconcerting.

"You think of the seals as locks on a door."

"Okay... last one opens and..."

Castiel looked at him with a tense expression. "Lucifer walks free."

Dean's eyebrows rose. Okay, not what he had expected. "Lucifer? But I thought Lucifer was just a story they told at demon Sunday school. There's no such thing."

"Three days ago, you thought there was no such thing as me," Castiel pointed out. "Why do you think we're here walking among you now for the first time in two thousand years?"

Dean looked at Castiel in reluctance, seeing where this was going. "To stop Lucifer."

"That's why we've arrived."

A little uncomfortable with all of this new information, Dean resorted to his favorite defense mechanism: sarcastic insults. "Well... bang-up job so far. Stellar work with the witnesses. Nice job letting my little sister get kicked around by a ghost. Two thumbs, way, way up."

Castiel seemed to be losing patience. "We tried. And there are other battles, other seals. Some we'll win, some we'll lose. This one we lost. Our numbers are not unlimited. Six of my brothers died in the field this week." He looked at Dean with resentment. "You think the armies of Heaven should just follow you around? There's a bigger picture here." He was stepping closer, his voice even lower. Almost menacing. "You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of Hell. I can throw you back in."

Without giving him a chance to reply, the angel was gone, leaving Dean standing alone in the kitchen. A moment later, he was blinking back sunlight and laying on the floor where he had fallen asleep. _I'll be damned. _The angel had come to him in a dream. Now if _that _wasn't Biblical…

* * *

_Author's Notes: So this was kind of a "filler" chapter... one of those we have to have and get through, but not toooo much happening. Hope you guys enjoyed it! Next chapter coming soon :) ALSO, if you go to Tumblr and search the hashtag "srsfic" you can see some photos of Alex and crew!_

_Special thanks to LisaMack and Jenmm31 who have been leaving constant reviews and feedback for me... xoxo you guys!_


	7. A Shortening Fuse

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 7 / A Shortening Fuse

_"A brand new start and a goodbye. We fall apart just to come alive_."  
- Bebo Norman_  
_

* * *

She was all alone in a place where the darkness gnawed and devoured. Alex opened her mouth to call for help, but nothing came out—not a word, not a sound. Claws swiped at her, invisible and fiery. Somewhere far away, she heard her brothers calling for her, but she was drowning in the nothing and left without words. And then, she saw Dean—impossibly far away. He saw her somehow, and reached for her—then was violently dragged from her, screaming. She tried to reach out, but her limbs had turned into water. She tried to shout his name, she tried to shout for Sam, but Dean was gone. Overwhelming despair overcame her and she twisted, rolled, struggled against the dark creatures that tumbled around her. _Boom, boom, boom._ Sam was suddenly there within reach almost, but when he saw her, he just stared. _Boom, boom, boom. _Alex screamed out in silence, begging her brother to help her, save her. _Boom, boom, boom._

She heard herself gasp and her eyes flew open to see daylight and the familiar ceiling of Bobby's guest room. She had been dreaming. _Boom, boom, boom. _"Hey, I've been banging on this door for like five minutes! Are you asleep or what?!" Dean's voice demanded from outside the room and behind the door he was pounding on. Disoriented, Alex scrambled out of bed and pulled the door open, squinting at her oldest brother.

"Yikes, ever heard of a hairbrush?" he quipped. His good humor faded when he took in her expression. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Bad dream." She rubbed her eye with the heel of her hand tiredly. That was the only problem with sleeping a whole night through. There were always nightmares. Dean looked sympathetic and gave her arm a good, enthusiastic 'cheer up' whack. "Well, come on. Up and at 'em. We're hitting the road soon. Pack everything."

"Might take me awhile," Alex said—yes, it was early, but never too early for sarcasm. She grabbed her duffel and slung it over her shoulder. She was already dressed except for shoes—she didn't own any pajamas. "Ready when you are."

"All girls should be like you," Dean said teasingly, and hooked his arm around her neck, giving the top of her head a hard scrubbing with his knuckles. Alex protested the noogie with a yelp and a kick in her brother's shin. In the living room, Sam watched, separate and silent.

* * *

After a few minutes, she realized she was missing one vital piece of information.

"Where are we going, anyway?"

"West," Dean said impassively. _Allllrighty then_, Alex thought to herself. After another minute, he glanced back at her in the rearview. "So, uh, interesting thing, Al. Castiel came to me in a dream last night."

"TMI," Alex wisecracked, and in the front seat sullen Sam even had to smile momentarily.

"Ha _ha_," Dean retorted. "I'm serious."

"Yeah? So what did Mr. Handcuffs have to say?"

"A whole lot of self-righteous crap about how he's God's warrior. Oh yeah, and the apocalypse is nigh."

He suddenly had her full attention. "Huh?" she asked eloquently, mouth hanging open. She hadn't thought about the prophecy of the witnesses since yesterday—she had been too busy fuming about Sam.

"He said that Lilith's game is to break these seal things," Dean said.

Alex frowned. "Wait. The seals from Revelations?"

"Hell if I know," Dean said. "Why?"

"It's just, I read the sparks notes on Revelations while doing angel research," Alex said, trying to remember exactly what she'd read. "There were these seals that were supposed to bring all this crazy hell on earth, Judgement Day crap if they got broken."

"Well, Cas said there are sixty-six seals," Dean said. "Those ghosts yesterday were one of these seals. And my favorite part—if they all get broken, Lucifer is coming to town."

Alex sat forward in the backseat so that her head was between the front seats. "Lucifer? _Lucifer._ The devil. _Satan_."

"That's the one," Dean confirmed. From their grim expressions, Alex got the feeling her brothers were both already on board with the theory. Alex was a little blindsided. "And... you're just buying it?"

Dean's knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

"Sam?" Alex asked.

He barely looked at her. "I mean, yeah, I believe it. It's too crazy not to be true."

Alex sank back into her seat, feeling unsettled and suddenly very overwhelmed. "But what are _we _supposed to do? Why did Castiel tell you all this, Dean?"

Dean let out a heavy breath. "Cas has a bad habit of disappearing before I can get a straight answer from him." Shaking his head, Dean avoided her pointed gaze in the rearview. "He seems to want me for something. I just don't know if I can trust the guy."

* * *

It was late at night at the Willow Tree Motel and Dean had fallen asleep a few hours ago. He had driven all day long, and the siblings had remained mostly silent, each lost in their own thoughts. Sam had mostly stared out the window and complained about Dean's music choices, Alex had added a little to Dad's journal—angels required a lengthy if unfinished entry. There was still a lot they didn't know and might never know. Alex mulled over Castiel's brief appearances and stilted mannerisms, the flashing light and his dark shadowed wings—and, of course, the whole handcuffing thing. His words to Dean about the apocalypse were troubling. If it were true, this was bigger than anything they had faced before... and they were facing it as a family that had fallen apart. Was it true? Any of it? There were all these things that made zero sense to her: God wanting Dean for some kind of heavenly mission… God supposedly ordering protection over _her _of all people… and the impending apocalypse? Alex realized she was chewing the inside of her cheek and made herself stop. She watched the scenery outside fly by. She'd only gotten more and more troubled as the hours passed.

After arriving to the motel and settling in, Alex and Sam had exchanged short, necessary conversation here and there (stuff like "do you want to shower first?" and "which bed do you want?"). Dean had halfheartedly told them to "quit being bitches" and then turned in, either fed up or exhausted. Maybe both. Sam had hunched over his laptop at the table and ignored his sister completely. After moments of excruciating silence in which Alex only became more and more pissed thinking about her twin and yesterday's fight, she grabbed her jacket and left for a walk. She needed to be away from the forced silence, and she was tired of holding still. The night air was chilly, numbing her nose and cheeks. She walked next to the main road, where traffic was still pretty heavy. For awhile, she stood on the sidewalk and just watched cars pass. These normal people with normal lives and worries she'd never had. Like a 401k or planning a Christmas party or what new diet to try. She was worried about the freaking apocalypse. She was worried that one of her brothers would be taken by God, and that the other one would remain apathetic and refuse to have a real relationship with her.

After a while, Alex returned to find the motel room dark and Sam in bed, seemingly asleep. She crawled into her bed, too, jacket and all. She didn't really use blankets ever. She laid awake and still, wide awake. She listened to Dean's deep wheezy sleep-breathing, which could almost be called snoring—it was a sound she had missed these past four months. An hour or more passed and Alex cursed herself for not being able to fall asleep yet again.

She heard the springs squeak on Sam's bed next to her, like he had gotten up. Alex tensed, her pulse speeding up a little bit. She pretended to be asleep—_please, Sam, just be going to the bathroom_—she waited with bated breath as his soft footsteps slowly went toward the door. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she listened as the door opened softly and clicked shut. Opening one eye to confirm he really had left, Alex then jumped up, shoving her boots on as quietly as she could. She slipped over to the window and watched as he rounded the corner outside. Again, he kept throwing glances around like the last time he'd snuck out. Alex slipped out the door too, and keeping to the side of the building, she followed Sam at a distance to the back corner of the motel. He walked past the Impala without a second glance, further mystifying Alex. _Where the hell was he going?_ She stayed behind the parked cars, crouched low, to avoid being seen. Sam neared the end of the building, where a car was parked and idling.

Alex hid behind a Mustang and peered over the hood. Sam got into the car—as it pulled away, Alex could see the driver in one flash of light from the motel sign and recognized the girl from the motel the day that Dean had come back. Confused, Alex watched the car pull into the main road and speed away. _Who was that, and why was Sam sneaking out to go somewhere with her?_ And then, suddenly, in light of yesterday's confession from Sam, it made sense. Cold realization overcame Alex. Ruby. It had to be Ruby. Alex couldn't move for a few minutes, the reality of the betrayal and the lies sinking in. She was hurt, and deeply. What the hell was Sam _doing_? Had he been sneaking off to see her that other night, too? She shook herself off and hurried back to the room. She was going to wake Dean up and they would get to the bottom of this. _Tonight. _Alex burst back into the hotel room, expecting to find Dean still sleeping. But instead, she found something very different. Dean was up, and Castiel was there. Castiel looked at her, his expression almost wary. "Hello, Alex."

"Castiel...?" She looked at him in surprise and suspicion, unsure what to make of his presence there. Dean looked positively shaken up. From the two men's expressions and tense body language, Alex realized she had walked in on something important. She stayed where she was, fixing Castiel with a cautious, questioning gaze. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, he just popped in for a quick trip back to the future," Dean interjected sourly. Alex glanced at her brother. "...Uh... what?"

"I'm here because of Sam," Castiel said to Alex grimly, looking her in the eyes, and her stomach dropped in foreboding. Castiel looked almost conflicted or sympathetic. He turned his attention back to Dean, seeming to pick up where he'd left off before Alex had interrupted. "We know _what _Azazel did to your brother..." at the mention of Yellow Eyes, Alex's blood went cold. "What we don't know is _why_—what his endgame is. He went to great lengths to cover that up."

"Wait... what did Azazel do?" Alex asked, looking between Castiel and her brother and feeling extremely out of the loop. Dean looked at her and she could see how angry he was. "Demon blood. He dripped freakin' demon blood into Sam's mouth the night of the fire." Horrified, Alex looked at Castiel speechlessly, not understanding.

He met her gaze. "For unknown reasons, he did not do the same to you."

"No, he just took away her ability to speak," Dean said bitterly. Castiel's gaze faltered a little.

Alex's stomach jumped in surprise. That had always been the theory—but there had never been any reason or logic behind as to _why_ Azazel would have done it. Yellow Eyes had not confirmed or denied it when Dean had demanded to know. He'd only laughed. After Dean had killed the demon, nothing had changed and she'd still been mute. Not that his death would have broken the curse or spell or whatever it was... but it had been _months_ after he died that her voice had, out of nowhere, returned.

Dean was fired up and looking ready to kill someone. "Okay Cas, where's Sam?"

"He's headed to 425 Waterman."

Alex swallowed, steeling herself for Dean's reaction. "And, uh, Dean—I'm pretty sure he's with Ruby."

Dean's expression was momentarily aghast. "But he said—"

"He _lied_, Dean," Alex spat. "It's what he does these days."

Dean muttered something and grabbed his keys, heading for the door where Alex still stood.

Castiel remained stock still. "Your brother is headed down a dangerous road. Even we're not sure where it leads. So stop it." Castiel's eyes shifted to them, his gaze chilling. "Or we will." And then he was gone.

"Come on," Dean said to Alex. There was murder in his voice. Even the way he walked was angry.

"Okay, what just happened back there while I was gone for all of _two minutes_?" Alex demanded, doubling her stride to keep up with her brother.

"Time travel," Dean said tersely as he unlocked his door.

Alex paused and looking at him across the top of the car like he was crazy. "Are... you on drugs?"

"Man, I wish I were."

* * *

The Impala flew down the road in the darkness of night as a stunned Alex took in everything Dean had just told her—Castiel's appearance, time travel back to 1973, meeting Mom and Dad... all under Castiel's command to 'stop it'—the nursery fire—only at the end to find that Dean couldn't have changed any of it at all.

Alex shook her head. "So he let you see all of that and try to stop it... and then said you couldn't have changed it anyway?"

"Yeah. Effed up, right?"

"But why? I don't get angel logic."

"Yeah, me either, but that's beside the point. You need to tell me how the hell Sam can be with Ruby? She _died_." Dean punched the gas of the car, running a red light.

"Geez, Dean!" Alex was gripping her seat with both hands. She shook her head, flustered. "I don't know. It makes no sense. I overheard Meg's ghost yesterday talking to Sam about what he was 'doing with Ruby.' I confronted him later and he lied about everything. _Everything_. And then when I called him on his crap, he admitted that he'd been working with her until a month ago, trying to find a way to get you back." Her face twisted into a sour expression. "I should have known _that _was a lie, too."

Dean let out a very heavy breath through his nose, his hand gripping the steering wheel like a vice. "Wanna tell me why you didn't tell me about this?"

Alex didn't like being the target of her brother's anger and usually tried to avoid it, but right now she was overcome with a huge, unbearable amount of heartache, thinking of Sam. "He said he wanted to tell you. I know I should have told you... but I wanted to give him a chance." She barely kept her voice from cracking as she looked at Dean, wishing he could give her an answer. "Dean... what the hell happened to him?"

His jaw clenched and unclenched, and his voice was uncharacteristically broken. "I don't know if I wanna know." He cleared his throat, slowing down. "I think this is it."

An old processing plant was up ahead, by all appearances abandoned. Dean switched off the headlights, got a bit closer, then pulled over and popped the trunk. He took out the demon blade and looked at it with great intensity as Alex stood back grimly. Dean silently slid the knife into his pocket and jerked his head toward the building, indicating that he was ready.

425 Waterman was the kind of place they frequented—a decrepit old building in a rundown part of town. Under the cover of night, it was easy to slip up to the building, undetected. Following the sound of voices—two unfamiliar and one familiar—Dean and Alex were able to make out three figures inside one of the rooms through a metal grate.

Sam towered over a man who was tied to a chair that was surrounded by a crude devil's trap painted on the floor. "Where's Lilith?" he demanded.

"Kiss my ass," the man replied. His eyes went black.

Sam sounded almost amused. "I'd watch myself if I were you."

"Why? Huh? Because you're Sam Winchester, Mr. Big Hero? And yet here you are, sluttin' around with some demon." The man grinned at the woman, who was watching with her arms crossed, leaned against the wall, giving the impression of casualness. "Real hero," the demon cackled, looking back at Sam.

"Shut your mouth," Sam said, trying to sound confident. Instead, he just sounded like he was about to lose it. Next to Alex, Dean looked like he was seeing red.

The demon smirked. "Tell me about those months without your brother or sister around to censor you or boss you around. Tell me about all the things you and this demon bitch do in the dark." He grinned wickedly, then his expression fell. Sam was raising his hand, slowly and steadily. The demon lost his bravado, beginning to cough, and suddenly thick black smoke began to pour out of his mouth.

Alex gaped, horrified and awed at the same time. She looked at Dean, who looked back at her in complete horror. Their worst fears were true. The demon screamed, and then collapsed as the last of the black smoke disappeared, leaving the man groaning.

"You follow my lead, Alex, hear me?" Dean hissed, and gave her no time to reply. He was already on his way in, his face murderous.

Sam froze as Dean entered, followed closely by his sister. "So... anything you wanna tell me, Sam?" Dean demanded. The question was laced with barely-contained anger. Alex hung back behind Dean a few steps.

"Okay guys, just hold on, okay? Just let me—" Sam began, but Dean cut him off.

"You gonna say, 'let me explain'? You're gonna explain this? Are you serious right now? You're here with Ruby, who you said was dead—doing what you told me you had stopped doing! Yeah, explain that, please. To the whole class."

Sam didn't seem to know how to respond, but Ruby, smiling evenly at the newcomers, stepped forward. She looked different than she had in her last body—she was now a brunette with dark wide eyes and a face that looked pleasant and pretty. "It's good to see you two again."

"Can't say the feeling's mutual, bitch," Alex replied acidly, coming to Dean's side. She felt Dean tensing next to her. "That's really Ruby?" he demanded of Sam, who didn't respond. Ruby's smile was fading. Dean lunged forward, shoving Ruby up against the wall, even as he whipped out the demon blade. Sam grabbed his wrist, shouting "Don't!" The knife clattered to the floor and Dean used momentum to throw Sam up against a wall, letting Ruby go. Alex, who had grabbed the knife off the floor, jumped Ruby, and both of the girls tumbled to the ground, Alex trying to bring the blade down on Ruby, Ruby just barely holding her off. Sam let go of Dean, sights set on Alex. He lunged at her, pulling her off of Ruby and yanking her back, holding her tightly. The knife again went clattering to the ground.

"Let _go_ of me!" Alex protested, struggling against Sam's iron grip. Ruby had crouched and taken the demon blade off the ground where it laid, and was eyeing Dean with a murderous expression. "Drop the knife, Ruby," Sam said, still restraining Alex in a vice-like grip. Ruby looked back at him defiantly, making him wait. Then she dropped the knife. "Well, aren't you an obedient little bitch?" Dean asked. She glared daggers at Dean, clearly ready to fight again.

Sam finally let go of Alex, who angrily yanked away from him and met Dean's gaze. This hadn't turned out in their favor. Sam glanced at Alex apologetically, then turned his attention to Ruby, indicating the man who was possessed earlier. "Ruby, he's hurt. Go."

The demon gave Dean another look, and helped the dazed man up, hauling one of his arms over her shoulders, ready to take him out. "Where the hell do you think you're going?" Dean demanded.

"The ER," Ruby retorted. "Unless you want to go another round first." With that, she left, and Dean proceeded to give Sam a severely dirty look.

"You okay?" Dean asked Alex, who was picking up the demon blade.

"Peachy."

"Let's get outta here," Dean said, and turned away, ignoring Sam's anxious, questioning look.

"Dean," Sam implored. Dean didn't stop, didn't turn back, and walked out the way he'd come in. Sam's voice got more desperate as Alex neared the doorway. "Alex!"

She whirled, angry, knife still in her hand. "What?!"

"Look—" he started, coming a couple steps closer, imploring her.

Alex shook her head, not able to keep the tears from springing into her eyes. She couldn't summon any of the anger anymore. It was all heartbreak. "I thought I could _trust _you, Sam." His face was twisted in remorse and shame and his eyes fell away from hers. Alex felt the hot tears stream down her face. Tears because she felt she had lost Sam completely. He had clearly chosen where he wanted to be—with a demon. She was at a complete loss. "I don't know you at all anymore," she whispered. He looked at her miserably, but said nothing.

And with nothing else left to say, Alex turned and followed Dean.

* * *

After awhile of second guessing himself and trying to think of how to explain everything, Sam returned on foot to the motel room only to find it empty. He waited into the morning, at first upset to the point of feeling physically sick, then feeling angry and attacked, then guilt-riddled and confused. Finally, around nine o'clock, he heard the familiar grumble of the Impala. He swallowed nervously. Time for round two of Dean and Alex's wrath.

Dean swept in alone, ignoring Sam completely. He began to stuff his shirts into his duffel wordlessly. Sam's stomach twisted. "Dean, what are you doing?" Dean didn't answer. Sam tried again. "Where's Alex?"

"I'm right here," she said, and he turned to see her standing in the doorway, arms crossed as she leaned into the door frame. She looked like she hadn't slept, and her expression was stony. Sam looked between his siblings, unsure of what was happening.

"What, are you, are you_ leaving_?" Sam asked as Dean finished shoving things into his bag.

"You don't need us. You and Ruby go fight demons." Dean churlishly grabbed the bag and started for the door, only to have Sam physically block his way. "Hold on—Dean, come on, man!"

Without warning, Dean hauled off and socked Sam in the jaw, the force sending Sam whirling. Reeling temporarily from the blow, Sam turned back, wincing. "You satisfied?" In reply, Dean again punched him in the jaw, this time drawing blood. "I guess not," Sam said, touching his split lip and looking at Alex, who was still at the door. "You gonna hit me, too?" She just looked away, sullen.

Dean got in Sam's face, blocking his view of his sister. "Do you even know how far off the reservation you've gone? How far from normal? From_ human_?"

Sam held his hands out defensively. "I'm just exorcising demons!"

"_With your mind!_" Dean yelled. He took a pause, trying to calm himself. "What else can you do?"

"I can send them back to hell! It only works with demons, and that's it." Clearly not convinced and even more clearly pissed, Dean grabbed a hold of his brother and pushed him backwards violently. "What else can you do?!"

"I told you!" Sam protested. Dean looked like he might punch Sam again. Alex had crossed into the room and was now gripping Dean's shoulder tightly, her expression fierce. "Hey—you need to cool it." Dean jerked back from her hand, but seemed to take her command to heart and retreated slightly. Sam looked at his twin reluctantly. She was looking at him distrustfully, arms crossed again. He remembered when they had been so close. He had told her everything. Now, she was looking at him like he was a stranger. Like she didn't know him. His gaze faltered. "Look, I should have said something," he said.

"Yeah, you think?" She replied.

"I'm sorry. I am. But try to see the other side here."

Dean, who had been standing with his back to them, turned around. "_The other side_?" He repeated incredulously.

"I'm pulling demons out of _innocent people_," Sam said, not sure why Dean couldn't see the staggering positivity of that fact.

"Use the _knife!_" Dean said, his voice yet again raised almost to a yell, exasperated.

"The knife kills the victim!" Sam protested, almost yelling now too. "What I do, most of them survive! Look, I've saved more people in the last five months than we save in a year."

"That what Ruby wants you to think? Huh? Kind of like the way she tricked you into using your powers?" He shook his head sadly. "This is a slippery slope, brother. Just wait and see. Because it's gonna get darker and darker, and God knows where it ends."

"I'm not gonna let it go too far," Sam said. Dean chuckled humorlessly, and then hit the lamp on the nearby table, sending it crashing into the wall. The twins winced in unison. "It's already _gone too far_, Sam." His next statement hit them all like a ton of bricks. "If I didn't know you... I would wanna_ hunt _you."

Sam's eyes shone with tears, and he nodded looking down. Alex had to look away, too, the pain that had been inside her heart suddenly taking over her body, too.

Sam shook his head, looking at his big brother pleadingly. "What was I supposed to do? You were gone. I was here."

"I was here, too," Alex said, her voice wavering with tears. "And you go and decide _this_ was what you wanted? That you'd rather work with a demon than your own sister?" She hated how heartbroken she sounded. He looked affected by her statement and searched for the right words.

"It wasn't like that, I just—you weren't going to try to bring Dean back and… that's all I could live for anymore. I knew you wouldn't approve." His face was a mask of pain. "But what I'm doing... It _works_."

Alex shook her head mournfully. "Not for me, it doesn't." Dean, whose face was scrunched in an unreadable expression, approached Sam again. "Yeah and if it's so damn terrific... then why'd you lie about it to me? To Alex? Why'd you hide it all this time?"

Sam looked down, guilty. "Because you know it's wrong," Alex supplied when he said nothing.

"It's not, normal, no, but I mean, is it really wrong?" Sam asked.

Dean smiled tightly, more a grimace. "Why else would an _angel_ tell me to stop you?"

Sam's face fell. "What?"

"Castiel said if we didn't stop you... he would." Sam seemed to get the significance of it, and looked at his big brother helplessly.

Dean was still on his soapbox. "See, I take that as meaning that_ God_ doesn't want you doing this. So, are you just gonna stand there and tell me everything is _all good_?" Dean asked, and Sam, the picture of turmoil, looked between his brother and sister, torn.

"Sam, please. It's not too late. Is it? You can stop. Right?" Alex asked. Her twin looked at her long and hard, uncertain, surprising her with his silence.

Suddenly, his phone rang. He scrambled to pull it out of his pocket, clearing his throat and answering. "Hey, Travis. Yeah, hey." He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to collect himself. "It's good to hear your voice, too, yeah. Um, look, it's not a really good time right now. It's-" he paused. "Yeah, okay. Uh, well, just give me the details, and, uh…" Sam walked over the the bedside table and grabbed a notepad, scrawling on it. Alex looked at Dean, whose expression was so many things—angry, hurt, sad. He saw her looking and looked away.

"Yeah, okay, thanks Travis. Bye." Sam put his phone down and looked at Dean, then Alex. "Travis has a lead in Missouri." He looked down, his jaw working oddly. "Listen, I know you guys have no reason to trust me or to let me come along, but—"

Dean grabbed his duffel off the floor. "Shut up and let's go."

* * *

They made good time to Carthage, Missouri—about eight hours of driving nonstop. Dean told Sam about Castiel taking him into the past, and for a few moments as Dean told them about how young and full of life their parents had been, there was peace. Of course, when Sam slipped up and mentioned Azazel dripping demon blood into his mouth without Dean or Alex mentioning it to him… yet another fight followed. Sam said he was sorry, and Dean had retorted that Sam had been saying that a lot lately, and more stony silence had settled over the car.

When they got to Carthage, they looked up Jack Montgomery, the lead Travis had told them about. The guy Jack had been eating raw ground beef out of his refrigerator when the Winchesters had checked in on him. After witnessing that, they met up with Travis, who was an old friend of Dad's. Alex remembered seeing him once or twice, but it had been a long time ago. Travis complimented the Winchesters, saying their dad would have been proud of them for sticking together, then he oohed and aahed over Alex's voice, and embarrassed her thoroughly with his amazement. He then sat the siblings down and told them that Jack Montgomery was a Rugaru—a monster that manifested in the subject's mid thirties and would wreak murderous havoc on everyone around him if and when he gave into the desire to eat humans. The Winchesters parted ways with Travis feeling less hungry than they had before.

* * *

"All right, so we're gonna go have a little chat with this guy, and see where he's at," Dean was saying as they drove down the road, heading back to Jack's home the next day. Dean looked at Sam pointedly. "But I just want to make sure, if push comes, you're gonna shove."

"Meaning?"

"Well, odds are we're gonna have to burn this guy alive," Dean said, referring back to Travis's information. The only way to kill these Rugaru guys was fire.

"This guy has a name and a wife," Sam replied, and Alex drew in a deep breath. She could already hear the fight coming on and didn't think she could take another one.

"Yeah, who we're probably gonna make a widow, okay? I mean, you heard Travis. He's gonna turn. They always turn."

"Well, maybe he won't. Maybe he can fight it off," Sam said.

"And maybe he can't, that's all I'm saying."

Sam sounded on edge. "All right, we'll just have to see then, okay? And why aren't you asking Alex if she's gonna shove?"

"Because I know what she'd do," Dean said without hesitation. "Come on, Sam. You're side railing. You sure your emotions aren't getting in the way here?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know, nice dude, but he's got something evil inside. Something in his blood. Maybe you can relate."

Even Alex had to look up at that comment. _Ouch_. Sam was silent, then with eerie calm he said, "Stop the car."

"What?"

"Stop the car or I will!" He repeated, forcefully this time. Dean scoffed and pulled over, but even before he had completely stopped, Sam was getting out, slamming his door with gusto. He took several steps away, clearly trying to calm down. Dean followed him after throwing the car into park, and Alex got out, too, but hung back near the car.

"You want to know why I've been lying to you, Dean? Because of crap like this."

"Like what?" Dean demanded, clearly fired up and ready to fight.

"The way you talk to me, the way you both look at me like I'm a _freak_!"

"I do not," Dean replied lamely.

"You know, or even worse, like I'm an idiot!" Sam pointed an accusing finger at Alex. "Like I don't know the difference between right and wrong!"

"Well _do_ you?" Alex asked, no longer leaning against the car but coming to stand in front of him.

"You have no idea what I'm going through. None," Sam said darkly.

"Yeah, because you've been _gone_ the past five months!" Alex almost shouted, not bothering to regulate her anger anymore. "By your own choice. So don't lecture me about what you're going through, because you aren't the only one going through crap right now!"

Sam got a self-righteous, joyless smile on his face. "Oh please, Alex, don't act like the victim here."

"Really, Sam?" Alex asked, getting angrier by the second at his completely jackass behavior. "Because that's all you've done the past few days. Act like someone held a gun to your head and made you go screw around with psychic demon mind powers... sorry, but I'm not gonna cry a river for you."

Sam shook his head. "And you wonder why I didn't want to be around you," Sam said, looking at her like she was detestable. "You don't even try to understand my point of view!"

"Oh, the one where it's okay to lie to your family and mess around with evil for kicks?" Alex retorted, too high on anger to care anymore. Dean was watched everything unfold with a sickened expression on his face.

Sam huffed. "You know what, Alex—"

"No. Stop." She said, forcefully, grinding her teeth together in frustration. "The three of us are the _most_—" she was holding her hands on either side of her head, "_fucked _up excuse for a family. I'm sick of it!" She was at the point of shouting now and looking at both of them now, not just Sam. "All we do is _fight _each other, lie to each other. We can't even stand to be _around_ each other. _Why are we doing this?_ Huh? Cuz Dad would have wanted it? He would be _ashamed _of us." She let silence span for a few beats, then looked at Sam pointedly. "Sam if you don't want to be here, don't be here! It's that simple."

"Come on, Alex. We're family, like it or not. No one's leaving," Dean said, his tone commanding. Alex looked at him insolently. "I am _not _letting this family fall apart," Dean said fiercely.

"We already have, Dean," Sam said furiously. "And you know what, I'm tired of being the odd man out."

Dean's eyebrows shot up. "What are you talking about?"

"You," he poked a finger at Dean, "have _always _taken her side, every time. You two want to act all high and mighty, like you've never messed up."

"Well I don't recall either of us ever, you know, using our freakin' minds to exorcise demons," Dean snapped.

Sam shook his head, at a loss, taking a moment. "Why am I even here right now? I can tell when I'm not wanted."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "So now you're trying to make this look like we're ganging up on you?"

"You are! You've both made up your minds that I'm the bad guy without even having all the facts."

"Which are?" Dean asked, arms crossed.

"I've got demon blood in me!" Sam shouted. "This disease pumping through my veins, and I can't ever rip it out or scrub it clean! I'm a whole new level of _freak_! And I'm just trying to take this—this curse... and make something good out of it." He breathed deeply, calmer now. "Because I have to."

His outburst hadn't fallen on deaf ears, and Alex could hear the fear he was holding onto. She appealed to him the only way she knew how. "Listen, Sam... yeah you've saved some people, but at what cost?" She studied him for a moment, filled with sudden worry. "We don't know what this is doing to you." She paused, growing sullen. "Only what it's doing to this sorry excuse for a family."

Sam seemed to bristle at that statement. "Last time I checked it took more than one person to make a family work."

Alex stared at him stonily, then shook her head in frustration, gave up and turned away.

Dean threw his hands in the air, dumbstruck. "Okay—before I died, you guys fought… but this is a whole new level of screwed. You two want to tell me why you can't look at each other anymore? Why the kids who used to be inseparable are... _this_?" Dean indicated vaguely with his hands.

Alex looked at her twin sidelong and from underneath her lashes. There didn't seem to be any going back from the damage that had been done. She didn't know how to fix this. They were both wounded, and unlike Dean, didn't seem able to just push those feelings aside. Sam shrugged grimly, speaking for them both. "Dunno what to tell you, Dean. Times change."

Dean looked less than pleased, his jaw clenching tightly. After a moment, he jerked his thumb at the Impala. "Look, let's just go talk to Jack."

Alex looked at Dean in semi-disbelief. Were they really going to just drop this whole thing? Sam seemed to be thinking the same thing, but after a moment of deliberation, gave a small nod. Alex wordlessly watched her brothers get in the car. Without a choice, she did too, but not happily.

* * *

They parked behind and beside the Montgomery residence, after the silent ten minute drive. "I'll do the talking," Dean said gruffly, looking back at Alex, who wasn't moving. "What, you're not coming?"

"No."

"Suit yourself," he muttered, and he and Sam got out of the car, slamming each door a little harder than necessary. Alex watched their retreating forms and sank down into the seats, glad to finally be by herself. The silence was better now. It wasn't so heavy and bated. She stewed for a few minutes, halfheartedly looking around at the neighborhood they were in. It was upper middle class... beautiful new homes with manicured lawns and pretty mailboxes and nice cars parked in the driveways. The definition of normal.

Across the street, a middle aged man was polishing his motorcycle in his garage, lovingly shining the chrome details. It was some kind of vintage Harley, with black trim. Alex gazed longingly at the bike. She could ride that thing forever, until the roads themselves ended. Away from the fighting, away from the apocalypse. Or at least away from the heavy anger that hung over this family. Maybe without her, Dean and Sam might get along. Maybe they wouldn't suffer from the third wheel vibe she brought to the mix. She leaned against the window, chin in her hand, staring at the motorcycle.

At that moment, a woman came to the garage door and beckoned the man inside. She was holding a pitcher of iced tea. The man wiped his forehead and went inside, leaving the bike unattended.

Alex's heart rate picked up just slightly, the opportunity of the situation striking her. She looked back toward where her brothers had just gone. No. She couldn't leave them—not right now. It was too selfish. But then she thought back to the last couple days. The angry words, the accusations, the oppressive environment. She just wanted some time to sort out her thoughts and figure this mess out and not feel like her life was a constant war zone. She looked back toward the garage where the motorcycle waited, beckoning to her. She swallowed, knowing she needed to decide, and now. She pressed her lips together, weighing her options. And then without any further thought, she ripped a blank piece of paper out of one of the notebooks in her duffel.

About five minutes later, Dean and Sam returned to the empty Impala. On the middle seat, in Alex's neat handwriting was scrawled the following note:

_Need some time to myself. Don't come after me. I'm already far away. I'll find you in a couple of weeks._

* * *

_Author's Note: WHEW, this chapter got out of control. It's like 7,000 words long. Sorry. But when Winchesters fight, they fight! Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. I am excited about the next chapter because it contains a lot of original material and a lot of Castiel :D hope you are enjoying this story, readers! Please leave a comment or two in the review box below! XXOO_


	8. Miles From Anywhere

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 8 / Miles From Anywhere

_"Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too. So I stayed in the darkness with you."  
_- Florence and the Machine_  
_

* * *

Even as Alex sped down the road on the stolen bike, she almost turned around and went back, conflicted on the impulse decision and almost terrified to follow through with it. But she kept going, driven by many emotions and thoughts she couldn't quite put into words. Mostly anger leftover from the fight she had just had with her brothers. She was tired of being angry and feeling kicked around and ignored.

Alex could picture what it would be like when they found the note she left—they would argue, predictably, about going after her. Dean would immediately want to drop everything to track her down. He'd be pissed off and ready to go find her, come hell or high water. Sam would use the cover of brotherly sensitivity to urge Dean to respect her wishes and, besides, he would point out, they were in the middle of a job, Alex could take care of herself, etcetera, etcetera. Sam would soothe Dean by saying they'd track her down when they took care of the job at hand. Dean wouldn't like it, but then would agree, swearing right after the job, they'd follow her. But Alex didn't want to be found. Not right now. The apocalypse, angels, demons, ghosts and even her stupid brothers could all go screw themselves.

The miles continued to fly by as she headed North, coaxing more speed out of the stolen bike and not caring where she ended up, only wanting to be far away from everything her life was.

* * *

**Nine Days Later**

_Kimball, Nebraska_

Alex laid on her back on the floor of the abandoned cabin she had been staying in for the past few days, one arm behind her head as she stared at the ceiling. It was sometime near sunset, and it was getting dark inside the small house. Beside her half-consumed bottle of whiskey sat, temporarily forgotten. She was idly smoking a cigarette, watching the haze of smoke dissipate above her head. She hadn't smoked in awhile. It had started as a teenage act of rebellion. She'd wanted to do something that would get her in trouble, if not with Dad (who was not around enough to pick up on the secret habit), then with Dean or even with Sam. Only, no one had noticed it. She had snuck off multiple times, but neither of her brothers picked up on her secret. So she started trying harder to get caught.

Finally, Dean had smelled it after she had snuck a smoke in his car—and he had immediately accused Sam of smoking and launched into a tirade about drugs, alcohol, and how Sam was a bad example and liar, headed for prison. It had been really harsh and somehow ironic coming from Dean, who had dropped out of school at seventeen and had experimented with recreational drugs and alcohol since age twelve. So, after Dean had finally finished the lecture, Sam had insisted he hadn't smoked anything, ever, and it must have been Alex. At that point, she'd felt too embarrassed to own up to it, and in cowardice hadn't done anything but shrug and shake her head. Dean hadn't even questioned it, and launched into another verbal beat down on Sam for lying. It was something Alex still regretted. When Sam had asked her about it later, she had written down:** Maybe it was Dad? **Sam had looked at her and shaken his head, rolled his eyes. He knew, and she knew that he knew. But he never said anything about it again_. _

She only smoked in times when she was frustrated or feeling self-destructive. Which was all the time actually, but... she only smoked when it was super bad. She blew another stream of smoke up, lazily watching it rise. Dean would kill her if he could see this. Well, he probably wanted to kill her _period_ right now. She had done some crazy stuff throughout the years, but had never run away or disappeared before—she estimated she would be facing all new levels of Dean's fury when she returned.

After so many years of avoiding the cops, the FBI, not to mention monsters, hiding from her brothers had been easy. She knew the tricks—SIM card out of the phone, cash only instead of credit cards, switching the plates on the stolen motorcycle… she'd done it all by second nature and knew that even if her brothers had tried to find her, there was no way. She'd left no trace after Kansas City, where she'd gotten enough cash out of an ATM to last her for a few weeks.

Even though it had been easy to disappear, it was hard for her to be totally alone like she was, and after a few days, her initial anger had faded into sadness and depression. She'd been away from her brothers and out of contact for a little more than a week now, and it was, in one word, weird. She felt everything from guilty to lonely to empowered to still not even sure what she was doing or why she'd left—after all, Dean had just gotten back from the dead. And what had she done? Run off. That thought alone was enough to guilt-trip her into the next century. It was unbelievably strange to live this way—not hunting anything, not constantly in a fight with one or both of her brothers, not in constant peril. Most people would have been positively thrilled to be away from those very situations, but Alex realized that she missed it.

Instead of the normal monster hunting and mortal danger, she'd been living off of peanut butter crackers, apples, beef jerky, all while drifting around idly. She had taken to studying the book of Revelation the past couple days on the hunt for answers on angels or the apocalypse. And she'd been thinking—a lot. She'd thought things through until she was wide awake and exhausted mentally. As a result, she had some words for both of her brothers, and some apologies to make, too. She blinked heavily and put her cigarette out on the floor, halfway smoked. She felt sleepy, and a little drunk. She sat up a little awkwardly and listened to the sound of silence.

She hadn't spoken out loud in days, since there was no one around. She hummed lowly, just to make sure her voice was still there. She thought about how much she dreaded going back. Not the part about being back in the life she was used to, but the part where she'd have to face the wrath of Dean and the passive aggressive guilt-tripping of Sam. But, the longer she waited, the worse both would be.

Alex wandered outside aimlessly to the worn out porch, Bible and whiskey in tow. The stars would be out soon.

* * *

Castiel watched in silence as Alex Winchester sat on the porch of the abandoned cabin she had been living in the past few days. He remained invisible to her and stood a few steps away. She was leaned against the splintered stair railing and staring up at the stars in the dark night sky. Open in her lap and currently forgotten was the Bible, turned to the book of Revelation. He had seen her studying it for the past couple days, trying to decode some of the prophecies, he estimated. Her tenacity was admirable, if not in vain. Not even Castiel understood all of the things contained in Revelation. Alex had currently given up on the reading, her attention turned to the sky, her expression open and thoughtful, maybe a little conflicted. Her wide eyes and simple, open face made her look haunted, somehow. Hers was one of the most familiar human faces to him, but every time he was near her, he studied it closely, looking for things he hadn't noticed, taking in the intricacy of her expressions and features. What a marvel the human face was.

In Alex's hand, a pen went back and forth, tap, tap, tapping against the open book that was balanced on her knees. She wore the same shoes he had always seen her wear—a scuffed pair of lace up boots in faded black. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders and down her back in untamed waves. A faded green cargo jacket was over a t-shirt that had a skull and crossbones with wings and a huge red proclamation of "METALLICA" on the front. Castiel wasn't sure what a metallica was supposed to be, but he assumed, judging from the shirt design, that it was a mythical beast humans had imagined by combining death and angelic fables. Interesting, but not accurate.

The shirt was not the greatest point of interest. Perhaps his favorite thing was the new silver chain she wore. Dangling from the end of it was a small, long, thin silver shape. It was a lock pick. Her outward response to his actions inspired a strange reaction in him—he wasn't sure, but it might have been amusement. He remembered the look of pure shock on her face when he had clicked the handcuffs down over her wrist—it wasn't that he had wanted to restrain her using the handcuffs. But the vengeful spirit of Nancy had been so bent on destruction and Alex's life had been on the line. He hadn't been able to stay by her side that day, as the war waged in heavenly planes that day had required all angels available. Lilith's war was troublingly successful so far. So, the handcuffs had been a creative solution to keep the youngest Winchester safe. He had a feeling she was still angry about it, though he didn't understand why. Didn't she understand that he had saved her life?

Every few days Castiel came close to Alex's physical presence, remaining invisible. Here he could assess her fate. Fates were tricky and always changing, but it was possible for a guardian angel to see into the future for a few linear days and into the events that surrounded a specific human. He was more in tune with her fate, as he had been given the task of watching over her. The orders to protect Alex Winchester had been in place since she had been born, but Castiel had only been assigned recently.

Before Castiel, up until about a year ago in earth time, the angel Nandriel had watched over Alex. But Nandriel had fallen away and been punished by Heaven for allowing herself to be corrupted by the world. At first, in Alex's youngest years, Nandriel had watched from Heaven, at a distance. A few years prior to the current time, Nandriel had obtained a vessel. Angels did not _require_ human vessels, but Nandriel had petitioned Heaven to allow it, saying that the danger had increased for her charge and in order to best protect the human, she needed a physical manifestation. But when Alex was about to turn twenty-four, it was discovered that Nandriel had neglected her duty in favor of pursuing humanity and free will. Her punishment had been most severe.

So, Castiel had watched Alex from transcendental heights at first and now from his vessel, all in all for nearly a year now. He had seen her grief when Dean died. He had seen and felt her pain when Sam left. Even though he had only spoken to her a few times, he knew her more than she could ever guess. He watched her now, wondered what she was reflecting on internally. She seemed to be searching for something out in the stars, her eyes darting back and forth across the starry expanse. Castiel turned and looked, too, but he saw nothing. Just many, many stars. Castiel looked harder, trying to fathom why she stared endlessly into the sky. Whenever he watched humans he felt a keen sense of disconnection. He didn't intuitively understand them like they understood each other.

He looked at Alex again, who remained blissfully unaware of his presence. It was much easier this way. She and her brother Dean both became very riled and angry when he appeared to them, for reasons Castiel did not understand. All he knew was if he were to make himself visible to her, she would immediately become guarded and mistrustful, and even a little afraid. He didn't like to inspire that sensation in her, and he didn't understand why she would feel that way. It was much simpler to remain unseen.

Castiel could hear his brethren beckoning to him, the host of Heaven proclaiming tidings, calling angels to order. Many things were happening. He turned his attention to the voices, listened longer, hearing a message meant for him specifically. He was to meet with Uriel, and immediately. He frowned slightly. If Uriel were involved, that could only mean something drastic. Castiel was troubled at his very strong reaction of reluctance at this summoning. He didn't think it was appropriate for him to feel aversion to a call from above, or hesitancy to seeing one of his brothers. Being an angel whose standard was obedience, he pushed the thoughts aside and took himself from where Alex was and to Uriel.

Alex Winchester remained where she was, never even knowing she hadn't actually been alone.

* * *

_And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show His servants the things which must shortly take place. _Alex highlighted, circled, and re-read Revelation 22:6.

To her, it sounded spookily like Castiel's appearance to her and Dean, and that made her uneasy. She wasn't sure whether she should be happy that she finally found something that made sense, or terrified. The rest of Revelation was filled with violence, destruction, and wrath as seals were broken—was that really what the future held? She didn't want to believe it. She blinked, sleepy from all the reading, and leaned against the railing tiredly, again glancing at the stars. She remembered what Sam had said to her one time when they were young and spending a night alone in a motel room, wondering where Dean and Dad were. Her twin had put his arm around her and guided her to the window. "Lex," he said, using his favorite nickname for her, "if you're ever scared and wondering where Dad or Dean is, just look up at the stars. We all see the same sky. And the stars are looking down on all of us, no matter where we are. So, we're together still, in a way, you know? Look. I bet they're looking, too." _Oh Sam. _Alex felt a ripple of sadness. She'd give anything to go back to the way they used to be. She shivered again, blinking her heavy eyes with less and less luck.

Alex was suddenly aware that she was standing up, out in front of the cabin, in bright moonlight, and Castiel stood in front of her. "Alex." He said her name gruffly.

A little disconcerted, Alex looked around, trying to figure out how she had been sitting on a dim staircase one minute, then standing out in front of the cabin in almost blinding moonlight the next. Then, she noticed that the trees didn't move even though she felt breeze, and there were no sounds. Even though it looked real, it was lacking something. Even Castiel looked slightly wrong. His face was lit too well, like day, but it was night. He looked more handsome than she remembered.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, sounding dazed. She then remembered Dean telling her about his Castiel dream. "Is this... a dream?"

"Yes, but this conversation is very real," he said, coming closer.

"Okay..." Alex said, eyeing him suspiciously. "I'm... not sure if I'm comfortable with you being... inside my head," she said, and even though she meant it for real, it came out sounding like she was joking.

"Appearing to you in dreams is safer. Less eyes and ears," Castiel said, leaving Alex perplexed. He was now incredibly close and Alex almost had to lean back. He apparently didn't understand personal space, and she was surprised to find that she was a little intimidated—he was bigger than she remembered. He was oblivious to her discomfort, looking down at her unyieldingly. "Something is about to happen to your brothers in Salt Lake City. You need to get there, and quickly."

"Something—what something? Are they all right? And can you _back up_ a little?"

He looked confused for a fraction of a second, then stepped back. "My apologies. Leave immediately and travel fast—Uriel_ must not know_ of this conversation we just had."

"Who's Uriel?" Alex asked. But Castiel was already gone.

She woke up, leaned awkwardly against the rough wooden railing of the porch stairs, her body stiff and her throat sore. The light was dim, and there was thick morning fog. The dampness of dawn's chill seemed to have permeated all of her, and she shivered. Dammit. She'd fallen asleep on the porch. Classy. She stood up and groaned. Her head was pounding—but she had no time to think about it. Castiel's appearance had been so vivid, and had awakened a sense of urgency in her. She was racing down the road not even five minutes later.

* * *

**Three Hours Later**

Alex swung into a gas station, her head officially killing her. Her throat had gone from sore to total misery, and she was having trouble breathing out of her nose. She guessed a cold was what she got for falling asleep outside, but it didn't lessen the fact that it sucked. She glanced around as she swung off the motorcycle, always wary of police. She wasn't a criminal, not really. Yes, she stole things, committed identity theft and fraud… but the things she did do for society seemed to make up the balance between right and wrong. At least, that's what she told herself.

She grabbed some Tylenol from the shelf inside the convenience store and stood in line to pay for it, shuffling some cash out of her pocket. The line was a few people long, and the gas station employee didn't seem in a rush. The wall behind the employee was mirrored, and Alex caught a glimpse of herself in it, as well as the girl standing in line in front of her. The girl was a blonde in a pretty floral printed dress, with immaculate makeup and bright eyes. She reminded Alex of a cover of one of the women's magazines that always lined gas station checkouts.

Alex, in contrast, had windblown, raggedy hair that had been thoughtlessly put in a ponytail... a rumpled outfit that hadn't been washed in two days, and a plain, tired looking face with eyes that looked hollow to her. She looked away from the mirror, downcast and feeling self-conscious.

She guessed it was just another reminder that where she was headed was the right place. Here in the real world, she was a sad excuse for a person. She knew how to kill a ghost, but had never decorated a Christmas tree. She had faced shape shifters and vampires, but had never lived in one place for more than a couple weeks. She knew how to send a demon back to hell, but had only one kiss to her name—and that was with a ten year old boy who had been dared to do it by friends.

She had woken up every day of her life not knowing where she would be twenty-four hours from then. She'd never owned a purse and never been to prom and wasn't entirely sure how to work an oven. She could pick just about any lock, hot wire a car, count cards, throw a knife with fatal accuracy—but she had no_ real_ life skills to speak of, no lasting relationships besides Dean and Sam and Bobby. And Dad. But he was gone, like most other people Alex had ever loved.

"Hey, you gonna pay for that?"

Alex started, looking up and realizing the line in front of her was gone and the gas station employee was looking at her like impatiently.

"Uh, yeah. Keep the change." She slammed a five dollar bill onto the counter, avoiding looking into the mirror again.

* * *

Once she was in Salt Lake City about five hours later and feeling just as sick as before, Alex set to work tracking down her brothers. Thanks to the public library's free internet services, she logged onto the cell phone provider website that Dean used and then activated the GPS feature to see where Dean's phone had been in the past 24 hours. From there, she used Google maps, which showed her one of the locations had been the Moonlight Motel. Bingo.

She got to the motel and saw no Impala in the lot—they must be out right now. Popping the SIM card back into her phone, she called the front desk of the motel and complained that she was staying in room 200 and there was a horrible leak in the bathroom. She watched as the guy at the front desk hurried upstairs, and using the quick window of time, she quickly accessed the main computer, reading through the guest registry, looking for any classic rock star or obscure fandom names—_ah ha_… Bret Michaels was staying in room 126. She smiled, shaking her head at how predictable her brother was.

She made for the room, taking a credit card out of her wallet and jimmying the door open, while glancing around, trying to do it fast without being noticed. Hopefully her brothers would be back soon from wherever they were. Sure, she could have called them, but she didn't like being cussed out over the phone. In person was much better. She shut the door behind her and looked up only to promptly gasp and freeze. The room was not empty like she had thought it was.

"Hello, Alex," said Castiel. He stood up from where he had been sitting on the bed.

She didn't even have to act surprised—she was. She glanced at the other man, who stood casually off at the other end of the room, looking at her in a way she didn't like. He was an imposing bald man with dark skin and a certain hawkish look. "Ah, the littlest Winchester," said the man. He sounded decidedly unfriendly. Maybe that was the Uriel guy Castiel had mentioned.

"Who are you?" she asked cautiously. She remained by the door.

"This is Uriel," Castiel said, confirming Alex's suspicions.

Alex came into the room a bit further, looking hard at each of the angels. "Okay... and what are you two doing here in my brothers' motel room, exactly?"

"Waiting for them," Castiel said. _Thank you, Captain Obvious, _Alex thought to herself. She had guessed as much, but she was decidedly uneasy about the entire thing, and crossed her arms, coming to stand by one of the beds. "For what?"

"It's none of your concern," Uriel replied, coming closer and staring her down, his eyes unfriendly, almost hostile.

"Oh, I think it is," Alex said, matching his icy tone. She looked at Castiel, whose face told her nothing. "Okay… how about I come back later?" She arched a brow and made to leave, chuckling darkly. "I'll leave you two your... privacy."

"You're not going anywhere," Uriel said, his deep voice foreboding. He had come closer still, probably attempting to make her back up or cower. And even though she was kind of freaked, she stood her ground. "Oh really," she replied evenly, staring him dead in the eyes, refusing to be intimidated. "And _you're_ gonna stop me?"

"Sit _down_," Uriel said, and Alex yelped, her legs going out from under her as she plopped down onto the bed, eyes wide. "Hey!"

Castiel stepped forward, his brows knitted together. "Uriel, you shouldn't force her to—"

"I will do what is necessary to keep this sad sack of cells in check," Uriel said, then pointed at Alex. "Learn some respect, child." She glared back at him, unable to move her legs. What the hell was this guy's problem? "And Dean said _you _were a dick," Alex said bitterly to Castiel while looking at Uriel.

"_Release_ her, Uriel," Castiel said lowly, and Uriel did, but reluctantly. So, Castiel seemed to be in charge, at least right now. That was a plus, maybe. Uriel went and stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, proceeding to ignore Alex, who stood up. Castiel was looking at her, decidedly uncomfortable. "Uriel is very particular. He can come across as rude."

"_Rude?_" Alex repeated. That was a very mild way of putting it.

"Yes." Castiel's head tilted to the side slightly. He looked like he was trying to figure something out. "Why does your voice sound strange?"

"...I have a cold," she said. He didn't seem to immediately know what she meant by that and Alex tilted her head to the side. Did he really not know what that was? "You know... like, a virus? I'm sick?" Oddly enough, she was a little amused suddenly by his squinty expression. "It happens when you fall asleep outside and then ride a motorcycle across the country in cold, wet weather."

"I see. I'll heal you," Castiel said, and moved forward, hand outstretched.

"No. No more unnecessary healings, Castiel," Uriel said forcefully, without turning around.

Castiel stopped, as if caught. Alex looked at Uriel, disliking his implications. "I was drowning in my own lungs last time—it wasn't_ unnecessary_."

"I wasn't speaking of that time," Uriel said brusquely, turning and fixing Castiel with a sharp look, and Castiel looked away, as if ashamed. Who did Uriel mean? Alex looked back at Castiel, whose eyes were downcast. "I'm fine, Cas. Don't worry about it. I've had colds a bunch of times." He didn't look too cheered, and Alex looked at Uriel again, whose back faced her. "Why would healing someone, if they needed it, be bad? I thought—"

"No one is interested to hear your puny thoughts, mud monkey. Orders for healings should be received be by revelation, not simply decided by the soldiers. Compassion is weakness. Making decisions is not our place. God's will must always be observed. We are not to do as we please." It was as if he were lecturing Castiel, not answering Alex. Castiel looked chastised, his eyes downcast and jaw gritted tightly. Alex never thought she'd feel this way, but she actually felt a little bad for the guy. If Castiel had been the opposite of what she expected angels to be like, Uriel was even worse. Alex felt like her dreams of angels had officially been trampled with Uriel's comments and attitude.

Uriel had returned to staring out the window in silence, and Alex, feeling frustrated and sour, sat down on the bed, resigning herself to wait for her brothers. Her eyes darted to Castiel, who stood by the door. He was still looking at Uriel, almost like there were a bad taste in his mouth. After a few moments, Castiel surprised Alex by coming and sitting next to her rigidly.

She realized she could hear him breathing. Somehow, that surprised her, because breathing was so ordinary and human. She snuck a glance at his profile. He looked so stern. He turned his head slightly, meeting her questioning gaze, and then his eyes dropped to stare blatantly at her chest. Caught off guard, Alex's eyebrows shot up. "What are you—" she fumbled. He looked at her in the eyes again, looking troubled. "I've been meaning to ask you something. What is a metallica?"

Alex looked down at her shirt, confused, not sure what Castiel was going on about—then she realized she was still wearing one of Dean's old Metallica shirts from when he was younger and two sizes smaller. Alex then looked back at Castiel, an incredulous expression on her face. He was awaiting her answer, looking incredibly serious. She laughed out loud, struck by the hilarity of the situation and the question. "Uh... Metallica is a band," she managed after a minute. He blinked, face unchanging. Alex tried again. "A musical group?"

He nodded. "I see." But he was clearly still perplexed. The momentary lightness faded as Alex refocused herself. She had things to ask this angel, her supposed protector. She cleared her throat, attempting to find her serious face again."Okay, listen, I need to get this out of the way: if you ever handcuff me again, I'm going to kill you."

He turned his head to look at her. "It is nearly impossible to kill an angel."

"Well, dammit, I'll find a way," she said grumpily.

He seemed almost amused by that, his eyes softening, his dry lips curving up almost imperceptibly... and then it was over just as soon as it had begun, his expression dropping as if he had thought better of his show of emotion. He looked away again, stern once more. He was a very odd guy.

Alex, perplexed but not discouraged, moved on to her next question. "You two are here about the seals, aren't you?"

Castiel sighed tiredly. "Yes. Another is about to be broken if we don't act quickly."

"And me and my brothers can stop it?"

There was a long pause. "I don't know."

Alex was getting frustrated. Castiel didn't like to give much information out. She tried again, with one of the most pressing questions she had. "So look, how long exactly have you been, uh, watching over me?"

He didn't look at her, still stared straight ahead. "About a year. Before that, Nandriel was your protector."

"Nandriel?"

"She watched over you since birth."

Alex's eyebrows shot up. "Since _birth_? No _way_." Forget the fact that she supposedly had a guardian angel _right now_—she'd _always_ had one?

At the slang 'no way' Cas seemed unsure how to respond. "Uh—yes, since birth."

Alex took a couple seconds to try and process that, then looked at Cas intently. "Okay. Well, why the sudden shift in management last year?"

"Nandriel failed. She chose to become human, and was punished by Heaven."

"Geez. You guys don't play around, huh?" She thought offhandedly of the chilling imagery in Revelation, of judgement and war. She shook her head, frowning. This disturbed her to the deepest parts. "I don't understand... why would God choose to protect me?" She paused. "I'm no one. I'm just a random girl."

His eyes squinted up just slightly as he stared into middle distance in front of himself. "The reason is unknown."

"That is extremely..." she searched for the right word, "creepy."

Castiel looked at her intensely, and underneath his gaze, she felt small. "Something about you is special to my father. You are meant to complete some task, or have some impact simply by being alive. Your life is worth something." Alex scoffed at that, almost offended by the statement—he sounded like a damn self-help book. Her life was _worth something_? Yeah right. What, she was supposed to do something that would alter fate? What a crock of shit. They must have had the wrong girl. Castiel's almost seemed taken aback at her reaction. "Why don't you believe me?" he asked, and Alex looked at him sidelong. His question left her feeling disconcerted and laid bare. She avoided it altogether. "That's a really personal thing to ask."

He took a moment to analyze her words, then nodded once, looked away. "I apologize."

Uriel snorted and muttered something about an angel apologizing to a fool ape. Alex clenched her jaw, forcing herself to stay seated. "Okay—what's his problem? Why does he hate humans?"

A muscle jerked in Castiel's cheek and he looked down, brows moving together slightly. "He doesn't hate humans. He's sworn to protect and serve them."

Alex looked at Uriel from underneath her lashes. "Could have fooled me," she muttered.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Whoa, a whole chapter of original material!? :D Do you like original material better, or reading Alex in scenes from the show? And how do you think Dean and Sam will react when they find that Alex is back? Is it creepy or not creepy how Castiel watches over Alex without her knowing? Let me know what you thought of the chapter... I love to hear from you! Thank you for all the reviews for chapter seven! Reviews always encourage me to write faster… wink wink! _

_I welcome concrit. I know I probably make mistakes and leave things out, so don't feel bad about pointing these out to be fixed!_

_LisaMack: funny you say that about Alex punching Cas… I have it planned, actually… I cannot WAIT to get to it, ahhh!_


	9. Happy Freakin' Halloween

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 9 / Happy Freakin' Halloween

_"You were told to run away, soak the place, and light the flame."  
_- Bullet for My Valentine_  
_

* * *

Alex and Castiel remained sitting on the bed in silence for all of three minutes, when Alex heard the familiar sound of the Impala, vaguely, outside. She suddenly felt a little sick, dreading what kind of state Dean would be in when he saw that she had crawled back. Beside her, Castiel looked at her appraisingly as she stood and faced the door, with her arms straight at her sides. She didn't have any more time to think about how she would react as the sound of the key sliding into the lock sounded. _Geez, you'd think a bloodthirsty werewolf was coming in... it's just your freaking brothers._ She swallowed as the door opened to reveal the familiar hulking form of Sam, whose face registered shock as he saw her. "Alex! Oh my God!" He came forward as if to embrace her, then noticed the other two men in the room and he reached for his gun at the hip, assuming the worst. His voice turned from relieved to demanding, he moved toward his sister protectively. "Who are these guys?"

Castiel had risen and was now coming toward Sam. "No, it's okay, it's okay," Alex shook her head, and motioned for Sam to leave the gun out of it. Behind Sam, the door darkened as Dean came in. His expression went from surprised to pissed in one second fast. Alex decided ignoring Dean would be best for now, and motioned toward the angel who Sam was staring at questioningly. "Sam, this is Castiel—the angel." Sam's mouth dropped open slightly, and he suddenly seemed very flustered.

"Hello Sam," Castiel greeted.

"Oh my God!" Sam exclaimed, then his eyes went wide in embarrassment. "_Er_—uh—I didn't mean to—sorry. It's an honor, really, I—I've heard a lot about you." Sam held his hand out for a handshake, completely starstruck. Castiel stared unmovingly at the outstretched hand in what Alex could only guess was confusion, and then he looked at Alex, as if for explanation. She stared back at him, bemused, before she spoke up. "Shake it. Shake his hand." She was trying really hard not to laugh at him at this point... it was sort of cute. "It's a greeting," she explained.

As if to illustrate the point, Sam shook his hand up and down in the air. Castiel seemed to understand, and put his hand into Sam's. "It is an honor to meet you, Sam Winchester," Castiel said. "The boy with the demon blood." Sam's face fell slightly and Alex looked at Cas sideways—_awkward_. "Glad to see you've ceased your extracurricular activities," Cas told him, and Sam gave Alex a glancing weird look, she shrugged slightly.

"Let's keep it that way," Uriel commented passively, still facing out of the window with his back turned to them.

Dean, who still hung back a little, an unhappy expression on his face, looked at Uriel, then at Castiel and Alex for an explanation. "And he is?"

"Heaven's biggest jackass," Alex answered before Castiel could. Dean met her gaze, scowling. "Yeah okay, and by the way, wanna tell me where you've been this past week?"

She shook her head in dismissal, nodding her head slightly toward Castiel and Uriel. Not with them here. "I'll tell you later."

"Yeah you will," he shot back peevishly.

Castiel was approaching Dean, oblivious to the siblings' conversation, seeming focused on something else. "The raising of Samhain, have you stopped it?"

_Samhain. Why did that sound familiar? _Dean looked from his sister to the angel testily. "Why?"

"Dean, have you located the witch?" Castiel asked, his patience clearly short.

"Yes, we've located the witch," Dean said. Alex particularly disliked witches and she wasn't thrilled to hear that's what her brothers were after right now.

"And is the witch dead?"

"No, but—" Sam started. "We know who it is," Dean interrupted.

Castiel nodded slightly, and walked over to the bedside table, where a small hex bag sat. _Crap_! Alex hadn't even noticed that. "Apparently the witch knows who you are, too." He picked it up and held it high. "This was inside the wall of your room. If we hadn't found it, surely one or even all of you would be dead." Alex and her brothers stared at the hex bag with distaste—being on a witch's bad side was one of the worst things, ever, period. "Do you know where the witch is now?" Castiel asked.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, which Alex recognized with a twisting stomach. They weren't quite there yet. Dean confirmed her suspicions with his next comment. "We're, uh, working on it." Castiel's jaw tightened. "That's unfortunate."

"What's it to you, anyway?" Dean asked.

"The raising of Samhain is one of the sixty-six seals."

"So this is about your buddy Lucifer."

"Lucifer is no friend of ours," Uriel again commented from his place near the window.

Dean looked his direction irritably. "It's just an expression."

"Lucifer cannot rise, the breaking of the seal must be prevented at all costs," Castiel said, which they all knew.

"Why don't you kill the witch then? You're super-powered angels, right?" Alex asked, pointing out what everyone else was thinking. Something here just didn't feel right.

"We cannot kill this witch," Castiel said with no further explanation. "Okay, great," Dean said with no enthusiasm, "then why don't you tell us _where _the witch is, we'll gank her and everybody goes home."

"We're not omniscient," Castiel replied. "This witch is very powerful, she's cloaked even to our methods."

Alex felt a prick of interest there—there was a way to hide from angels? Sam, ever the peacekeeper, spoke up. "Okay, well we already know who she is, so if we work together—"

Uriel cut him off. "Enough of this."

At this point, Dean lost patience and wheeled, staring Uriel down hostilely. "Okay, who are you and why should I care?"

Uriel simply turned and looked at Dean in silence, leaving Castiel to explain.

"This is Uriel, he's what you might call a… specialist."

Uriel finally approached them, his hands behind his back, the hints of a smug smile on his face.

"What kind of specialist?" Dean asked suspiciously. There was a long pause, and Dean's voice softened in suspicion. "What are you gonna do?"

Castiel's mouth was in a somber, thin line. "All three of you, you need to leave this town immediately."

Alex looked at him in surprise. "Why would we leave? Don't we need to stop this Samhain guy?" After all, the angel had just told her, early _that_ morning, to come to this town and quickly. She glanced at Uriel, then Castiel, remembering his mysterious warning not to tell Uriel about that. Cas met her gaze dead on, and narrowed his eyes just slightly. "You have to leave because we're about to destroy this town," he said.

"_What_?" Sam exclaimed.

"You're gonna smite the whole friggin' town?" Dean asked, his disbelief palatable.

"Yes," was Castiel's emotionless answer.

Alex stared at the angel, completely disillusioned, any short-lived fondness she'd had for him suddenly evaporating into thin air. "You _failed_ to mention that little _detail, _Castiel!_" _She exploded accusingly, to which he looked at her without any trace of uncertainty or remorse. Only grim certainty. "We're simply out of time. This witch has to die. The seal must be saved."

"There are a thousand people here!" Sam protested.

"One thousand two hundred fourteen," Uriel corrected.

"And you're willing to kill them _all_?" Sam asked, his voice awash in disbelief.

"This isn't the first time I've… purified a city." Uriel almost smiled at his own comment. He seemed proud.

"Look, I understand this is regrettable," Castiel said, to all three of the Winchesters' dismay.

"Regrettable?" Dean repeated, totally disgusted.

"It's _detestable_!" Alex almost shouted. "What kind of game are you angels playing? You are out of your damn minds!"

"We have to hold the line; too many seals have broken already," Castiel said, and even _he_ sounded like he was getting riled.

"But come on, these are _people_! Aren't you supposed to protect people? _All_ people? Families? _Kids_?" Alex asked, growing more and more desperate to get even just a drop of empathy from either of the angels. "You screw the pooch on some seals and this town—these people—have to pay the price?" Dean added angrily.

Castiel met Dean's gaze steadily. "It's the lives of one thousand against the lives of six billion, there's a bigger picture here." Castiel stepped closer, almost getting in Dean's face. "Lucifer cannot rise, he does and hell rises with him. Is that something that you're willing to risk?"

"There _has _to be another way," Alex said, and Sam was right behind her. "We'll stop this witch before she summons anyone," he said. "Your seal won't be broken and no one has to die. We just have to find her. Just give us that chance, please!"

"We're wasting time with these mud monkeys," Uriel muttered to Castiel, as if the Winchester three weren't in the room.

Alex glared at Cas and jabbed an angry pointing finger Uriel's direction. "Cas, I have about _had it _with that dude."

"I'm sorry," Castiel said without feeling, turning away from the Winchesters, "but we have our orders."

"No, you can't do this, you're_ angels_!" Sam protested, to which Uriel chuckled airily. Sam tried again. "I mean aren't you supposed to—you're supposed to show mercy!"

"Says who?" Uriel asked. He seemed amused. Sam looked like someone had killed his dog.

"We have no choice," Castiel repeated, to which Dean scoffed. "Of course you have a choice, I mean, come on!" He said. "You've never questioned a crap order, huh? What are you both just a couple of _hammers_?"

Castiel sounded on edge when he replied. "Look, even if you can't understand it, _have faith_, the plan is just."

"Are you kidding me right now?" Alex asked. She was shaking at this point. Castiel looked back at her sharply as she continued. "Does it _sound _just? Killing a bunch of innocent clueless people because of the... the_ sin_ of one? How is that okay to you in _any_ way?"

Castiel looked grudging. "It may not make sense to you, but it is what must happen. Because it comes from heaven, that makes it just."

"Oh, it must be nice, to be so sure of yourselves," Dean said sarcastically.

Castiel looked at Dean seriously. "Tell me something Dean, when your father gave you an order, didn't you obey?"

Dean's expression chilled. "Don't go there with me," he said lowly, then pressed his lips into a thin line. "Know what? You two halos might want to leave now. Plans have changed."

"You think you can stop us?" Uriel asked.

Dean began slowly walking toward Uriel, his face a mask. "Maybe not, but if you're gonna smite this whole town, then you're gonna have to smite us with it, because we are not leaving. See, you went to the trouble of busting me out of hell, I figure I'm worth something to the man upstairs. So you wanna waste me, go ahead, see how he digs that. Oh, and remember my baby sis over here? _God_ wants her protected. That means undead. So destroying a city with her in it, not the best idea!"

"I will drag you both out of here myself," Uriel said lowly.

Alex, who had walked up to stand just behind Dean's shoulder, looked at him, unfazed. "I'd like to see you try, asshole."

"With pleasure," he replied, and made to move toward her. Dean and Castiel stepped in at the same time, blocking Uriel's intended path.

"Do not touch the girl," Castiel warned, and Dean pushed past Castiel, getting in Uriel's face. "Over my dead body you'll lay one finger on her. And if you want to drag _me_ out of here, you'll have to kill me first." He turned and looked at Castiel. "We can do this, we will find that witch and we will stop the summoning. Just call off your attack dog."

Uriel apparently had reached the end of his patience. "Castiel! I will not let these peop-"

"Enough!" Castiel commanded loudly, holding up a hand for silence. The room fell into quiet, and Castiel stared at Dean, then glanced at Alex, and then Sam. Alex felt her heart hammering. If Castiel said no, what next? She knew she couldn't stand by and let a whole town go up in smoke, but these were freaking angels... could she and her brothers really stand up to them if they were forced to? She wouldn't find out. It didn't come to that. Castiel relented, and with utmost grimness he looked at Dean. "I suggest you move quickly," he said.

"Yeah great. And I suggest you two get _lost_," Dean said bluntly. The angels looked at each other, and with the sound of wind against fabric, they disappeared from the room.

Sam appeared shellshocked, and looked at Alex in disappointed confusion. She could see that angels had not made the best first impression on her twin. She was totally flabbergasted about the plans to destroy the town and the angels seeming apathy toward human life. Dean, who had remained silently staring at the spot where Castiel had been, breathed in a deep, steadying breath then turned on his sister, his expression quite unpleasant. "Okay, that's out of the way. So. Explain yourself. Now."

_Here we go. _"Relax, Dean. Listen—"

"No, _you_ listen. You think you can just up and run away in the middle of the freaking apocalypse? That you can just leave without a word to me? I never figured you for a _deserter,_ Alex!" He was pacing in front of her, talking with his hands angrily. "Did you even _think_ about how worried we'd be? My money's on no! What the hell were you thinking?" He was in her face now. "You could have gotten hurt! You might not have been able to find us again! You didn't even _think _about what this would do to the family!"

"Dean—" Alex tried, looking away from him in discomfort. "Oh, I'm not done," Dean said, cutting her off. "Of all the _stupid _crap you've pulled—"

Alex's voice rose as she cut her brother off. "Dean! Did you ever stop to think that maybe _this_ is why I left?" She was trying hard to stay calm, to keep this from turning into another fight, but struggling. "You act like you run this family and the people in it!" He pursed his mouth, disliking her implications. Alex wet her lips, trying to word herself carefully, to speak more evenly. All of the speeches she had rehearsed in her mind were gone, and she found herself stumbling over words. "I just needed some—some room to breathe. Some quiet to work through my thoughts."

"What _thoughts_?" Dean scoffed. "We have one little fight over Sam's demon crap and you abandon ship?"

"No!" Alex protested, beginning to feel like she was losing. "It's not even that, it's… I just, I didn't know if I could stay and do this anymore. Not with our family in the worst shape I can ever remember it being in, you know? Every time I turn around, one of us is fighting the other about something."

"And?" Dean demanded, not impressed.

"And I can't take it!" Alex shot back.

"Tough crap, Sally Sue. This is our life and it's not all roses and throw pillows."

Alex crossed her arms sullenly. "Okay, now you're just being a dick because you're mad at me."

"You're friggin' right I'm mad!" Dean barked. At that point Sam, who had quietly watched, piped up. "Dean, come on, take it easy on her."

Dean whirled on his brother. "Shut up Sam! This conversation doesn't involve you."

"Like hell it doesn't," Sam countered, physically approaching his older brother. "Do you honestly think Alex will stay if you talk to her like this?"

"I'll talk to either of you whatever way I like!" Dean retorted.

"Yeah, and look where that's gotten you," Sam said, drawing some serious attitude from Dean in return.

"Look, it's not my problem that you two girls can't handle someone being real with you," Dean said.

Alex sighed in frustration. "This is the problem, Dean. You're all 'your way or the highway.' This is supposed to be a family, not a dictatorship."

"Oh, so now it's my fault!" Dean said, crossing his arms defensively. "Where the hell is this coming from? Both of you are free to leave, anytime! I'm not forcing you to stay and I sure as hell don't want you here if you're not committed."

"Dean, come on, man…" Sam was saying, trying to appeal to Dean. But it fell on deaf ears. "No, she wants to be treated like an adult, Sammy! And adults have tough crap for life." Dean turned and left, slamming the door behind him. Alex sank down onto the bed, putting her face in her hands and growling in frustration. Her head was killing her again, and her throat felt on fire. After a minute, she felt the bed sink a little lower as Sam sat beside her. His arm came around her and his hand squeezed her shoulder gently. "Hey," he said simply.

She looked up at him, and his sympathetic expression and offer of peace bridged the gap somewhere deep inside for her. "Hey," she replied softly, and they shared a small, hesitant smile. A truce. Sam pulled her a little closer to himself, and she put her head against his shoulder—and just like that, all the months of being too angry to even speak to each other seemed to evaporate. "He just drives me _crazy, _Sam!" Alex complained.

"I know, me too." Sam said. "He'll cool off in a couple minutes. He's just been worried sick about you. We, uh, both have."

Alex drew back, looking her twin in the eyes. She felt guilt clenching her stomach again, and she couldn't remember, momentarily, what had possessed her to leave. "I shouldn't have left. I feel really stupid."

"Well, it happened, so, you know, we can get past it," Sam said, his voice full of comforting empathy that she didn't feel she deserved _at all_. He then laughed softly. "I mean, I kind of understand wanting to leave." He became serious once again. "I've run away before, too." He looked at her remorsefully, just as she squinted and wrinkled her nose—she sneezed loudly, and sniffled.

"Hey, you don't sound too good," Sam said as she grabbed a tissue off of the bedside table. "It's just a cold. I'll be fine," she mumbled. She blew her nose with gusto, receiving a slightly grossed out look from her twin. She tossed the tissue and stared at her knees. It was time to face what was eating at her. The witch and the mission could wait for a few minutes. "I, uh, owe you an apology, Sammy."

He shook his head. "No, _I'm _the one who needs to apologize." He paused. "Ever since you left, I've been thinking about it. A lot, and I need to go first." He leaned forward a little, elbows on his knees. "I should have done _a lot _of things differently. Not lied to you and Dean for starters." He glanced at her briefly, his expression pained. "And not left you alone after Dean died. I was so angry and messed up. And I had myself convinced that you didn't want me there."

Alex shook her head, her eyes softening with regretful, self-loathing tears. "Well, I _am_ the one who said I wished you were dead instead of Dean." She shook her head ruefully. "I wasted so much time blaming you, when really... I think I should have owned my part in all of it. I pushed you away and I'm sorry." She looked at him morosely, and he nodded, taking it in stride.

"It's okay," he said tensely. "We both said things we didn't mean that night." He wet his lips, barreling on with more. "You know, I never got the guts to tell you but, ever since you got your voice back... I, I dunno, it was a big change for me. I was always your big brother who you needed, you know? I wasn't used to you being, I dunno, like so independent." He laughed softly, maybe a little embarrassed. "All I knew was for the first time in my life, you _yelled _at me. You ripped me a new one and... I guess it just really shook me. Mostly because I agreed with what you said about me. I did abandon the family." He looked troubled as he said that.

"I wish I could take it all back. All of it," Alex said softly, remembering her angry, hurtful rant with shame. "It's been hard, you know?" She sniffled a little, and not from her cold. "There's no time to think. I just... say things, before I even know what I'm doing." Sam had again put a reassuring arm around her shoulder and she looked at him through watery eyes. "Telling you that I wished you were dead instead of Dean was the most thoughtless and untrue thing I could have said," she said, voice cracking. "I'm _so_ sorry. I didn't mean it."

Sam's face showed compassion and relief. "I know that. And you need to know—I did _not _leave the family when I was eighteen because of you, or Dean. I just wanted a normal life at that time. You know, college degree, white picket fence, wife and family... to get away from underneath Dad's thumb..." He trailed off and looked down. "But no matter what I've wanted, I always end up back here. Cuz it's where I belong." He sounded subdued, not entirely convinced. Alex looked at him sadly. She knew he was always going to long for those things, deep down, and probably never be able to have them.

"I'm just really glad you're here, Sam," she told him honestly. Dimly, she thought how kind of sappy and ridiculous this moment was, but also how glad she was that they'd talked about it. He cracked a grin at her, his dimples cutting into his cheeks. "Me too," he said. Alex hugged her arms around him, finally feeling okay for the first time in a long time. Even if it were only for a couple seconds.

Dean burst back in just then, looking only a little calmer than when he had left. Seeing them sitting on the bed and embracing he gave them an annoyed look. "Girls, this is so touching. My heart can't take it. But we have a witch to find and not much time to do it in." He waited expectantly, jerking his thumb toward where he'd come from.

"Yup," Sam said, standing up.

"Also, some jerkwad egged my friggin' car," Dean said, looking supremely aggravated. He looked at Alex and cleared his throat, his expression softening a little, but still remaining gruff. "Sorry about chewing your head off back there. You know how I get."

Alex stood, grabbing the hotel notepad and pen off the side table and coming to him. "Yeah, I do."

Dean sighed heavily and held out his hand. "Truce?" She shook it with her free hand and nodded. "Truce." And that was how Dean apologized.

"Glad you're back, Al," Dean told her, but in no uncertain terms fixed her with a warning look. "But if you leave like that again, I'll friggin' kill you."

"Yeah, yeah," she said, already heading out the door, scribbling on the notepad as she walked. _This motorcycle was stolen and belongs to the man at the following address. _She wrote down the address of the house where she had stolen the bike from—she'd committed it to memory before whizzing away—and tucked the note into a tight space near the speedometer. She'd call the hotel front desk again in a bit and alert them to the note. She patted the bike sadly. "Nice knowing you," she said before turning to look at Dean, who was laughing at her on the sidewalk. "Such a do-gooder," he said, but even though he was poking fun at her, she could hear the hint of pride in his voice.

The three Winchesters got into the Impala (which was splattered in eggs, just like Dean had said), and Alex sank into the familiar back seat, breathed in the scent of old leather and familiarity. Up front, Dean was looking at Sam, who had fallen silent since exiting the hotel. "What's wrong, Sammy?"

"Nothing," he said, then sighed, relenting. "I just thought they'd be different."

"Angels?" Alex guessed.

"I just… I mean, I thought they'd be righteous."

"Well, they are righteous, I mean, that's kinda the problem," Dean said, turning on the windshield wipers. "Of course there's nothing more dangerous than some a-hole who thinks he's on a holy mission."

"But, I mean, this is God? And Heaven? This is what I've been praying to?"

"Sucks, doesn't it?" Alex asked, thinking back to all of her strange interactions with Castiel, and now Uriel.

"Yeah," Sam said.

"Look man, I know you're into the whole God thing, you know, Jesus on a tortilla and stuff like that," Dean said. "But just because there's a couple of bad apples doesn't mean the whole barrel's rotten. I mean, for all we know, God hates these jerks… don't give up on this stuff is all I'm saying. Babe Ruth was a dick but baseball's still a beautiful game."

Sam still looked disappointed at Dean's analogy, but began going through the hex bag, picking out the contents. He pulled out a small, blackened shape that looked suspiciously like a bone. Dean chuckled as he cut off the windshield wipers. "Well, are you gonna figure out a way to find this witch, Sam, or are you just gonna sit there fingering your bone?"

"You think you're _so_ funny," Alex snickered.

"_You're_ laughing," he replied, looking pleased with himself. Alex rolled her eyes.

Sam missed the joke, intently staring at the bone. "You know how much heat it would take to char a bone like this guys?"

"A lot?" Alex asked glibly, getting an eye roll from Sam.

"No kidding, Sherlock," Sam replied. "But more than a regular fire or some kitchen oven."

"Okay Betty Crocker, what does that mean?" Dean asked.

"It means we make a stop," Sam said. "Back to the school."

Alex leaned forward in the seat as Dean started the car. "While we're on the way, can you guys please tell me what exactly the job is?"

"Not it," Dean said quickly, and Sam sighed. "Okay, so basically this witch is trying to raise Samhain, the demon who started the tradition of Halloween. Apparently, today is the day where the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest."

"Awesome," Alex commented wryly.

"Yeah. If he rises, he can raise other things from Hell."

"But you guys know who the witch is?"

"Yup. It's this high schooler named Tracy. But we haven't been able to find her."

"Damn." Alex looked at the dashboard clock. It was getting close to six. "We don't have a whole lot of day left, guys."

"Which is why we gotta find her, and soon."

* * *

Castiel and Uriel were at the edge of a park, watching the humans who were playing, running, and enjoying the crisp fall weather. "I don't like this," Uriel was saying. He sat on a park bench, his expression terse.

"The decision's been made," Castiel replied from where he stood a few steps off.

Uriel laughed humorlessly. "By a mud monkey." He received a sidelong glance from Castiel. "You shouldn't call them that."

Uriel chuckled. "Ah, it's what they are, savages, just plumbing on two legs."

Castiel looked at him sharply. "You're close to blasphemy."

Uriel just sighed at him, and Castiel tried to reason with his brother. "There's a reason we were sent to save him. He has potential, he may succeed here." Uriel said nothing, and Castiel sat down on the bench beside him. "And any rate, it's out of our hands."

"It doesn't have to be," Uriel said ambiguously.

Castiel looked at his brother sharply. "And what would you suggest?"

"That we drag Dean and Alex Winchester out of here and then we blow this insignificant pinprick off the map."

Castiel fixed his brother with a stern gaze. "You know our true orders. Are you prepared to disobey?"

Uriel smirked, looking out at the park. "Are you?" He looked back at Castiel, the smile almost mocking.

Castiel didn't understand. "What are you implying?"

"There is concern among our brethren that your judgement has become impaired. I saw it myself. The way you spoke with those little flecks. Like they were your equals. As if you didn't have command or authority over them." Uriel sounded pious.

"Uriel, you know our duty to our father and his children," Castiel replied. "I'm only carrying out the tasks I've been given."

"No. We both know it has gone far past that. The way you treat them—especially the girl—" Uriel shook his head in judgement, trailing off. "Be careful, brother. Do not confuse humans for angels. And do not let this... _fascination_ be your undoing."

Uriel stood and walked a few feet away, leaving Castiel to himself. And although Castiel did not move or change his expression, he felt a strange sensation somewhere in his stomach. Uneasiness.

* * *

After stopping by the high school and visiting the art department, Sam found a drawer where more human bones were stored. That, paired with the brother's realization that the hex bag had showed up in their motel room after they had spoken with the art teacher, helped them make quick work of accessing the school's teacher files and getting the address for a Don Harding. He was the art teacher and apparently had led Sam and Dean on a wild goose chase, tricking them into believing that a student named Tracy was the witch.

It was dark when they got out of the school and drove to Don's house, which was quiet and empty from the outside. But in the basement, they found the art teacher in the middle of sacrificing a small, blonde girl—Tracy. Sam, thinking he was saving the day, shot the man on the spot. When they helped the girl out of the ropes that had tied her up, she revealed herself as the witch and with only a word, sent all three Winchesters crashing to the floor, paralyzed with pain. She set to work completing the spell as the siblings writhed on the floor, helpless. Her chanting grew louder and louder, and the room began to shake with dark power as Samhain's spirit fell upon the room. While Tracy wasn't looking, Sam smeared blood from Don's gun wound onto his face, then Dean's and Alex's, whispering "trust me!"

Then they laid still, pretending to be dead—possibly the stupidest and craziest thing they had ever done—as they listened to Samhain, who now inhabited Don's body, kill Tracy. He then left without even a second glance at the Winchesters, much to their relief. They were quick to get up and try to follow, but Samhain had already disappeared. Sam suggested he would go to the cemetery, where he could raise spirits most easily, and with that as their only lead, the Winchesters found the town graveyard and grabbed their weapons bag.

* * *

The Winchesters heard the screams of many voices coming from the crypt in the center of the headstones as soon as they arrived at the graveyard. The three of them raced down the stairs to see that a bunch of teenagers, all in costumes, were locked inside the mausoleum behind a metal gate. Behind them, gravestones were cracking and crumbling. Not good.

"Where's Samhain?" Dean asked, frantically looking around for the demon.

Sam looked down a side tunnel, and then pointed to Dean and Alex. "He must have gone that way. You guys help them!"

"Dude, you're not going off alone!" Dean said, but Sam was already taking off down the hall, the demon blade in hand. "Just do it!" He shouted over his shoulder.

"Dammit," Alex cursed to herself, even as Dean yelled at the teens to stand back, and shot the lock in half. "Go on, come on, get out, move!"

Even as the screaming teens streamed out, a door of a grave in the mausoleum room crashed to the ground, shattering. A once-human, now-zombie crawled out of it, and stood awkwardly even as another grave door crashed to the ground. Another mangled zombie began to crawl out.

"Stake, please," Alex said in a high-pitched, stressed out voice, holding an urgent open hand out to Dean. He was already rummaging in his rucksack, and tossed her one then pulled out another, his sights set on zombie number one. "Bring it on, stinky!" He charged forward and plunged the stake into the zombie's chest even as Alex dropped the zombie that had only partially crawled out of the grave. Another door of another grave crashed down, then another and another.

"Dean, there's like twenty graves in here!" Alex shouted, lunging at the newest zombie to arrive. The knife sunk into the rotting flesh with a sickening squelch and she kicked the zombie back, off the blade, her face twisted. _Gross_. Alex turned, startled, to see a pale woman standing beside her. Alex attempted to attack her with the silver blade, but the woman flickered out and she disappeared, only to reappear behind her. Crap, a ghost too?! Both of the Winchesters went crashing against one of the stone walls.

"Ouch," Alex groaned. "Zombie ghost orgy huh?" Dean said, and Alex grimaced and made a complaining noise as she pushed herself up to her feet. She looked at her brother hopefully. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" she asked.

"Yup. We're torching this whole place."

A couple minutes later, Dean and Alex were running down the hall the way Sam had gone, leaving a blazing inferno behind in the mausoleum.

They rounded a corner and froze at what they saw. Sam was standing at the end of the hallway, Samhain facing him. Sam's hand was extended, his face was screwed up in concentration and pain. He was doing exactly what Dean had begged him not to. "Oh my God," Alex breathed, and she looked at Dean in horror. "What do we do Dean?"

Dean's expression was shocked. "I—I don't..." he managed, and then nothing else. Alex turned back, unable to move. Blood was running down from Sam's nose, and he was moaning in pain. They could see black smoke coming out of Samhain as the demon stumbled forward, trying to reach Sam. But the the man fell over, as Sam's exorcism succeeded. Sam shuddered, looking like he might collapse. Breathing heavily, he looked up at his brother and sister, shamefaced. Alex couldn't just stand there—she darted forward and went to his side, trying to help him stand, asking if he was all right, wiping the blood from his face, shaking from adrenaline and shock and even a little fear. Sam was crying, maybe from shame, maybe from pain. It was hard to tell.

Dean was approaching slowly, his expression sad, and even a little afraid.

* * *

**The Next Day**

Sam and Alex were alone in the motel room, packing up. It had been kind of a quiet morning. Dean had been pensive and troubled, Sam apologetic and conflicted, Alex just ready for it all to be over. She could accept that Sam's abilities had saved them, and that they might not have succeeded without them at all, actually. Yeah, it was eating at her. She didn't know if she should be afraid of Sam. It wasn't exactly a human ability to be able to exorcise demons with the mind alone. She wanted to go back to a time before the abilities, before all of the confusion and gray areas. For now, she decided to try and treat Sam normally. He felt like a freak, and she didn't want him to feel like that. She knew it was a horrible way to feel.

She stooped to pick something off the floor and looked across the bed at her twin. "Don't forget your dirty socks," she said, and mischievously threw them at his face. He caught them with fractions of an inch to spare and threw them back at her, chuckling. "Hey!" she laughed, then suddenly, her expression fell as she stared at the newcomer on the couch behind Sam. "Tomorrow," said a deep voice.

Sam whirled around to see Uriel, who was continuing without missing a beat. "November the second, it's an anniversary for you," the angel continued.

"What are you doing here?" Sam demanded, and Alex's eyes darted around. "Where's Castiel?" she asked mistrustfully.

Uriel stood. "It's the day Azazel killed your mother. The day your voice was taken away," he glanced at Alex briefly before looking back at Sam. "And twenty-two years later your girlfriend's life taken too, Sam. It must be difficult to bear, yet you so brazenly use the power he gave you, Sam. His profane blood pumping through your veins."

"Excuse me?"

"You were told not to use your abilities," Uriel said flatly.

"And what was I supposed to do? That demon would have killed me, and my brother and sister, and everyone."

"You were told not to."

"But if Samhain had gotten loose in this town–"

"You've been warned,_ twice_ now," Uriel said, not breaking eye contact with Sam.

Alex came to stand beside her brother defensively. "Sam did what he had to. While you and Cas screwed around and did, hmm, oh yeah… _nothing_."

"You test my patience, Sam," Uriel said, and finally looked at Alex. "And so do you, little speck."

"Hey," Sam growled, his tone taking on a decisively aggressive tone. "Watch the way you speak to my sister." He shook his head, with a short humorless smile. "You know? My brother was right about you, you are dicks."

Uriel ignored the insult. "The only reason you're still alive, Sam Winchester, is because you've been useful." His presence was threatening, and his gaze deadly. "But the moment that ceases to be true, the second you become more trouble than you're worth, one word. One, and I will turn you to dust."

Alex stepped into Uriel's space, her expression and voice deadly. "You need to back up. Right now." Uriel stared back at her unyieldingly. "You don't come in here and threaten my brother after he saves a whole town from certain death."

Uriel smiled softly, dark amusement playing on his voice. "I do as I like, child. Don't think just because Castiel guards your life that makes you safe." Alex stared, a bit thrown. Uriel finally stepped back a bit. "As for your brother Dean, tell him that maybe he should climb off that high horse of his."

"You know, I have had just about enough of your self-righteous advice," Sam said angrily.

"You should be grateful that I even grace you with my presence," Uriel hissed. He paused and looked at Alex, then Sam again. "Ask Dean what he remembers from Hell." Then, he was gone just as suddenly as he had come. Left behind were two shaken up siblings.

Alex's jaw was clenched. "Angels, man. They think they can just pop in and out whenever!" She was troubled. "What did he mean? About Dean?" She turned to her brother, who looked similarly perplexed and troubled.

"I asked Dean about it, remember? And he said he didn't remember anything from Hell." They looked at each other a long moment, uneasy. Because if Uriel was implying Dean remembered Hell... neither of them had picked up on it.

"I mean, he's seems... okay, right? Maybe a little easier to piss off than normal?" Alex asked slowly. "We would know. Wouldn't we? If something were wrong. We would be able to tell, right?"

Sam looked oddly conflicted. "Maybe not."

Alex got quiet. Sam, however, was running a hand through his hair, huffing in agitation. "And what the hell did Uriel mean about you not being safe?" He folded his arms decisively, his jaw set angrily. "I don't like this."

* * *

Alex jogged across the street to the park where Dean sat on a bench alone, his back to her. She was fired up and ready to tell him about Uriel and ask him about Hell, but when she got to where he was, she could see that something was wrong from the look on her face. She sat beside him and looked at him intently, forgetting her original objective. "Hey. You okay?"

"Yeah," he said, looking down at the ground between his feet. "_Cas_ just popped in for a quick chat."

Alex's frown deepened. So, he got a visit from an angel, too. "What did he want?"

Dean laughed a short, huffing laugh. "Would you believe he told me that his _orders _weren't to destroy the town? His orders were to go along with what _I _said."

Alex couldn't hide her surprise. "What? After that big 'but we have no other choice' speech?"

Dean spread his hands in a shrug. He wasn't angry. He seemed disturbed, which was worse. "But _why_?" Alex asked, confounded.

"He said it was a test."

"A test? Like, from God?"

Dean shrugged, preoccupied. "I guess."

"Okay... so did you pass?"

A muscle jerked in Dean's cheek. "Cas didn't know." Dean's shook his head, seemingly at a loss. "I mean, look at this. These people, this town. It could all be gone if I wasn't the stubborn asshole that I am." He breathed out heavily, watching a mother push her toddler, laughing, on a swing. "I could have sentenced these people to death without even knowing it. Why is this all on me? I really don't get it. And these so-called angels. Especially Cas." He paused. "I don't know what to make of the guy." The quiet way he said it, the anxious look on his face, the way he was absently wringing his hands together... Alex was worried. She trusted Dean's judgement, but she felt the same about Castiel: she didn't know. And she was worried about what _God_ wanted with Dean. And for that matter, with her.

She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, matching her brother's stance. "I was beginning to think he was an okay guy until he started talking about wiping out a town of people. But I mean, maybe he can't help it," she supposed with a sad shrug. "Angels don't have free will according to most mythology."

"Maybe not," Dean replied darkly. "I'm not convinced yet."

Alex looked at her brother hard and long. "What makes you say that?"

Dean wet his lips. "Just a feeling."

She thought momentarily about telling him that Castiel was the one who told her to hustle back to Dean and Sam... but then decided against it, for now. She wasn't sure _why _Castiel had done it, and she wanted to know that first. Especially since it had been kept a secret from Uriel. "Can we trust this guy?" She asked quietly.

There was a long pause. "Not sure yet."

She nodded solemnly. "You know, especially after yesterday, I'm not even convinced that angels are the good guys."

"Yeah. I definitely get that," Dean said, and managed a thin smile. "Life was a lot simpler when it was just demons, huh?"

Alex chuckled. "Well, whether or not Cas is trustworthy or a good guy or what… he gave me back my brother who I thought was gone forever." She looked at Dean openly, remembering just how glad she was to have him back. "And for that… I can't _hate_ the guy."

Dean looked at her from the corner of his eye.

Alex continued. "Uriel, however, can go screw himself."

At that, he finally chuckled. "I'm with you on that one."

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, until Alex decided to make a long overdue confession. "So, Dean, that was me that smoked in the Impala."

"Huh?" He asked. It had, after all, been years ago. Then it registered and he looked at her incredulously, remembering. "That was _you_?" A disbelieving smile came over his face and he shoved her shoulder playfully. "You little _twerp_." He thought a minute more then chuckled. "Whoa, I guess I owe Sam a big time apology."

"Yeah, me too. Shouldn't have let him take the fall."

"Ah, he'd do anything for you, you know that. You're too cute to say no to." Alex wrinkled her nose at him, playfully and he pinched her cheek, making her laugh, then protest with a groan. He chuckled and then he slapped both of his hands down on his knees. "Enough of all this Doctor Phil stuff. I want a corn dog."

* * *

Castiel watched, hidden from human sight, as Alex and Dean made their way back to the motel together. They had the same kind of confident, loping stride and they walked closely. They had clearly made amends, and he heard the rare sound of Alex laughing out loud as the two got further away. He liked that sound.

The little smile on his face faded as his thoughts turned. He was troubled. Telling Alex to come to this city had been his own idea. After he had learned about the plan to present Dean and Sam with the destruction of the city, and after being made aware that Uriel would be the one who accompanied him, Castiel had felt an inexplicable urge to take matters into his own hands and ensure the right outcome. He had known that all of the Winchesters would be against the idea of a whole town being wiped out. They were a family who had fought to save strangers for their entire lives, after all.

But Castiel, knowing Uriel's persuasions, had reasoned that Alex's presence would give Uriel less room act since she was under angelic protection. And it had worked. Dean had used Alex and himself to derail Uriel, who had very much wanted to destroy the town. Castiel, who was against it from the beginning, had feared Uriel would somehow succeed, somehow destroy this town of humble, helpless humanity. Castiel watched people pass. Families, children, students. All unaware of how close they had all brushed with death.

He now wondered if he had he gone too far. Had he manipulated the situation? Had he involved himself where he shouldn't have? How could he know if what he'd done was a violation of God's will or not? Just a few moments ago, he had confided in Dean something he had told no one else—ever. That he had doubts. That he didn't know wrong from right anymore. And he _didn't_.

The most unsettling part to Castiel was that no matter where he turned, he felt a disconnect. His angel brothers and sisters were scattered across heaven. The humans that Castiel knew couldn't even begin to understand him, and they certainly didn't trust him. Who could he go to for a glimpse into truth? Where could he find the answers he so desperately needed? He feared that Uriel was right, and that his relationships and with Dean and Alex—his growing fondness and concern for them—had clouded his judgement. There were times when he watched over Alex, in particular, where he became distracted, wondering what she was thinking and watching the things she did with utter fascination. Losing track of time and space as he did so.

He stood there a long time, watching humanity pass by, deeply troubled.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Wow... another bazillion word chapter. I am seriously not trying to write such long chapters, but it keeps just happening! Oh well, I'm sure you guys don't mind THAT much, right?! I would like to apologize for the summary stuff in the middle part of the chapter about Samhain. When you write a character-centric story like this is, sometimes you have to kind of skim over some parts...! I am SO looking forward to writing some of the upcoming chapters I have in my mind :D lots of fun Cas/Alex stuff on the horizon. YAY. Can someone please pay me to sit and home and write SPN fic all day?_

_Thanks to everyone who has been reviewing! I love to hear your comments, encouragement, and even just "keep going!" reviews! :) don't forget to check out the blog winchesteralex on tumblr - you can see pics and gifs of what she looks like! XOXO_


	10. Tilt-A-Whirled

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 10 / Tilt-A-Whirled

_"He is walking in dreams, not knowing reality's name."  
_- Wuthering Heights_  
_

* * *

Alex found herself standing in the middle of a place she didn't recognize at first. Once-colorful (now-dingy) rides and booths were scattered across a flat pavement lot on a foggy day. The Tilt-A-Whirl, merry-go-round, Ferris wheel, and rows of cheesy, cheap prizes surrounded her. She looked around a minute, trying to remember where she'd been before she was here, but she couldn't recall. This place was silent. No people. No movements of any kind. No smell of the animals at the petting zoo or grease from the hot dog stand. The fog was thick and cool, and the way that it obscured the near distance made for a slightly ominous setting.

To her right was the bottle toss booth, and she wandered over, drawn to it. Rows of old Coke bottles lined shelves, and giant stuffed animal prizes lined the two walls on either side. She smiled slightly at the oversized green bear—that had been the one she wanted. On the surface at the front of the booth bowls of beat up rings waited to be thrown onto the bottle necks. She reached for one, then stopped, suddenly aware of a change. Frowning, she felt the distinct sensation of a presence behind her. She turned slowly to an increasingly familiar sight—a man with wild hair, a somber expression, and a beige trench coat. Immediately, she was on guard and a little thrown off balance.

"Hello Alex," he said evenly.

"Cas," she replied, cautious. "What... are you doing here?" She paused, thinking hard, putting two and two together. This was another dream. Except this time, Castiel hadn't generated one for her to be part of... he had waltzed into an actual dream of hers, a personal memory. That seemed a little bold. She crossed her arms, guarded.

He was looking around in an oblivious fashion, ignoring her question, seeming especially perplexed by the assortment of carnival rides around. "Where is this?" he asked. Something about his question and his deep gravelly voice made her clench her jaw. "It's a memory. From when I was little." She was curt in her response.

He was looking around at everything with that familiar, stern frown. "This is a place for amusement?"

"_What _are you doing here?" Alex repeated her question, which was now a demand. He turned his gaze back to her, and inclined his head just slightly, his eyes boring into hers intensely.

"I know you're wondering why I asked you to return to your brothers when I did."

"Yeah, I am..." Alex replied cautiously, waiting for the catch.

Castiel breathed in deeply, as if hesitant. "Truthfully, I did it for selfish reasons." He seemed almost contrite, which only heightened Alex's suspicion and confusion. "Meaning what?" she asked.

He was looking down, his expression grim. "I wanted to influence the outcome of the situation. I wanted to make sure that the city would not be destroyed." He looked Alex in the eye again. "Your presence created even more reason for Uriel to be unable to destroy it."

Alex was unsure what to make of Castiel's logic, and didn't bother to hide her mistrustful expression. "Wasn't Dean being there enough?"

"I... wasn't sure. Uriel can be very persuasive."

Alex tilted her head to the side. "Aren't you Uriel's _boss_?"

"Technically, yes."

"Then what was the problem?" Alex looked at Castiel long and hard, trying to figure out his angle in telling her this. She felt her eyebrows raise slightly as realization hit her. "You don't trust Uriel."

"I didn't say that," he said, a little sharply. And to her, his reaction was all the proof she needed.

"You didn't have to," Alex countered.

He seemed convicted by what she'd said, frowning deeply and looking down. "As I said, Uriel can be persuasive," Castiel said. "And unpredictable. He has a problem with my methods."

Alex grew uncomfortable. "He's not the only one," she muttered, thinking back to Pamela's eyes being burned out, Dean's deep cuts and scrapes from the shattered glass Castiel had rained down on him, the handcuffing, the dream-jacking, the time travel, the town-smiting. Straight up, she didn't think Castiel was trustworthy, let alone Uriel—but like she'd said to Dean... Castiel had brought her brother back from the grave. So, she couldn't exactly hate him. But right now, she wasn't sure why she should trust him. Life had taught her that almost everyone was plotting to screw you over in the end, and she wasn't sure if Castiel were here to help or harm her. She tried to take a deep breath and get a straight answer from him.

"Since when do you care what _mud monkeys _think about or know?" Alex asked, now deliberately attempting to draw out Castiel's true character. He looked affronted at her question. "Those are Uriel's words, not mine," he said with deadly seriousness. "I would never call a human that."

"Uh _huh_." Alex nodded patronizingly, eyes narrowed watchfully. "You'd just level a whole town full of them if two humans didn't stand in your way?"

Castiel's face was bordering on frustrated. "I carry out the commands of God, whatever they are."

Alex looked at him oddly, unsure how he could say that or be so blindly trusting. He must know God pretty well to have so much faith. "_Whatever _they are? But what if they're _wrong_?" Alex asked.

Castiel looked as if she had suggested that the earth revolved around the moon. "That's not possible. There is no fault in God. He is the _definition_ of justice." He paused darkly. "And apart from that, it's not my place to decide right from wrong."

Alex looked at him a long moment, then scoffed and looked away. "Yeah, okay."

"What's wrong?" Castiel asked.

She snorted. "What_ isn't_ wrong?" She laughed humorlessly. "I mean, forget about the whole _God _thing for a second and I still can't find one thing that's going right." She turned around and grabbed a handful of the rings and began tossing them with angry flair at the Coke bottles. "You don't know why you're protecting me—" _clunk_ "—you don't know what seals are going to be broken—" _clunk_ "—you don't know if Dean passed the test—" _clunk_ "—you show up and turn my whole friggin' life upside down with your—" _clunk_ "—apocalypse crap, your guardian angel crap—" _clunk_ "and to top it all off, you're _clueless_." She looked at him sternly, forgetting the stupid bottle toss rings and approaching Castiel confrontationally. "You have no idea what's going on. I take one look at you and all I see is confusion and ignorance. You'd kill a whole town of people without missing a beat, without even _thinking_, if you thought God said to do it. _Detestable_."

Castiel's expression had gone cold. His jaw was set firmly, his voice was lower than before, and his gaze bored into hers, unflinching. "I hold the power of Heaven in my right hand, and _Hell itself _could not hold a soul in my grip," he growled, stepping closer and invading her space, effectively staring down at her. "My knowledge is vast and unending. I am a soldier of the Lord, a warrior. I am your protector and guardian. I'm the one who brought your brother back from the gates of death itself. You should _respect _me."

Alex met his gaze challengingly. "_Please_. If you think you're going to tell me what to do, you have another thing coming." His jaw tightened at her retort. Alex, however, wasn't done. "And if you have such unending knowledge, why don't you tell me _why_ you're protecting me, or what work God has for Dean, or gee, I dunno, how to _stop the friggin' apocalypse_!" Her voice had raised to a shout, but Castiel remained unblinkingly rigid in front of her.

"Some things are not meant for you to know," was his even-toned reply.

"Says who?" Alex demanded angrily.

Castiel wet his lips and his eyes went down momentarily, as if he were gathering his thoughts or attempting patience. "Alex—have faith. God is in control."

Alex folded her arms, almost laughing. "_Is he_?"

He couldn't, or wouldn't, look at her when he replied. "Yes."

Alex had an incredulous grimace on her face. "_You _don't even believe that!" She accused.

His eyes came to her sharply, and he was once again defensive. "You don't know what I believe or don't believe."

Alex raised a challenging eyebrow. "So why can't you look me in the eye and say God is in control?" She unfolded her arms and raised them in a baffled, shrugging gesture. "You claim you're an all-powerful, wise angel but all I see is a confused guy with daddy issues in an ugly trench coat."

He looked down at himself, then back at her, unblinkingly. "I like this coat."

Taken aback, Alex felt a small, amused smile on her face at the surprising absurdity of him. She didn't know how to respond. One moment, he was trying to convince her that he was a superhuman being worthy of honor and renown, the next he was affronted that she had insulted his jacket. She expected him to disappear now, but he just stood there, his arms hanging at his sides. He was studying her back, perhaps waiting for her to say something. His face was at the moment free of his constant frown, and it made him look younger, almost attractive. She heard herself think that single, dangerous thought and mentally slapped herself. No. Just no.

"Uh, so, we're good here, right?" She said, her voice sounding a little stilted. "You can leave anytime." She turned away and went back to the bottle toss booth, hoping he would leave her in peace.

She leaned against the surface of the tall tabletop there and stared at the bottles lining the wall across from her. She heard soft footsteps behind her and she huffed slowly in exasperation. She looked up and sideways, where he stood beside her, staring straight ahead. "Why are you still here?" she asked, momentarily out of back talk, and now just tired and wanting to be left alone.

He looked her way sidelong, his expression grim once again. "When you wake up, it will be November second," he said, and Alex's stomach turned, a million negative feelings going through her all at once as Castiel continued, "The day that—"

"I know what November second is, Castiel!" She cut him off loudly, angrily, standing at her full height. "How would I forget that? The date of my mother's death _haunts my life _and follows me _everywhere_. The fire, Sam's demon blood, my lost voice... I think I know what tomorrow is." She stopped, and breathed, unclenched her teeth, trying to regulate herself. He just stared at her. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Sorry. It's not my favorite subject. First Uriel comes and rubs it in my face, now you."

Castiel's frown deepened. "What?"

"Yeah. He didn't tell you? You didn't see it?" She let out a disappointed puff of air. "Of course not," she muttered. "Well, no big deal. He just came and threatened Sam's life and told me I shouldn't feel safe just because I was under your protection."

Castiel's expression darkened, especially at the last part, but he said nothing.

Alex, however, was turning back to lean her elbows on the booth's tabletop edge, her hands clasped as she let out a slow, heavy breath, trying to collect herself and gather her thoughts. November second stirred great pain inside of her. After a moment, she looked up, shaking her head mournfully. "You know, I never understood how God, or whoever, could let that happen to my mom. To my family."

Castiel was quiet for a moment. "Bad things happen so that good can come out of it."

Alex chuckled bitterly. "Is that what you tell yourself so that you can sleep at night?"

"Angels do not require sleep," he replied matter-of-factly.

"Right. That's why you dudes love to crash human's dreams," Alex muttered.

At this point, he mimicked her posture, leaning his elbows onto the bar. She looked at him strangely, quieted. What was he doing that for? "I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to dream." There was a stark, honest sadness there in his quiet statement. For a moment, she was caught off guard. Then, he turned his head slightly to look at her—his expression surprisingly raw and open—she looked away almost immediately, flustered. She cleared her throat, attempting to sound businesslike. "So listen, I gotta know. Was I supposed to have demon blood, too?"

"More than likely yes. Nandriel's presence and your mother's interruption prevented it," he said. Alex's mouth opened slightly in surprise—she tried for a moment to imagine what could have changed if she _had _received demon blood like Sam had. Cas watched her face work for a moment, and then Alex, brows knit together, wet her lips uncertainly. "Why my voice? Why did Azazel do that to me?"

Castiel's eyes narrowed in introspection, and he looked at some distant point. "My best guess is that when your mother interrupted his actions to Sam, Azazel took your voice as a cruelty. A reminder to you and your family that he had taken more than just your mother." He met her questioning gaze grimly. "An attempt to... _break_ you, since he could not have you for his own." Alex looked at Cas in both dismay and surprise. She didn't miss the fact that Castiel had, in a surprising act of empathy, used the word _break_, instead of _ruin_. Because Alex felt like Azazel had taken her voice as a way to ruin her. To mentally break her down, to alienate her from her family and the world around her. And it had almost worked. Alex felt predictable pain in her chest, but refused to let herself cry. Instead, she shook her head, at a loss. All her anger was used up, and she felt sad and lost. "But I don't understand," she managed softly. "Why did I have to live most of my life on mute? Didn't Nandriel or whoever see how hard it was? How much I had to say and couldn't? The struggles I went through? Why didn't anyone _do_ anything for all those years?" She sounded so lost and unsure, and hated it.

Castiel said nothing for a long moment. He seemed disturbed by the question. "I'm not sure."

Alex's eyes stung with confused, hurt tears that she couldn't hold at bay. "I lived in so much pain, and no one cared. No one did anything."

"That's untrue," Castiel countered, almost defensively. "You were healed."

Alex was disturbed by the reminder that she still had no idea what creature, spell, demon, or whatever had randomly decided to give her voice back. "Yeah I was, but by who?"

She looked at Cas glancingly, but something about Castiel's expression startled Alex and her mouth went slack. "Do you know?" she asked, and he looked guilty, or caught. He did. "You _know_," Alex breathed, and she stared at him as her heart began to race. "You know who did it!" Castiel's eyes slid sidelong her way, his jaw tight. "Who, Castiel? Who? _Please_. Tell me. I have to know!"

He stood up, as if to leave, walking a few paces off, his back to her. She couldn't see his face—if she could have, she would have seen shut eyes, an oddly pained, vulnerable expression. And then he said what she least expected to hear. "_I_ am the one who restored what had been taken from you, Alex."

Silence. Alex stared agape at him, her heart stammering in her chest. "What?" She managed softly. "You?" She struggled for words. "What, God commanded it, or something?"

Castiel turned back around to face and look at her with a troubled expression. "No, it was not commanded." His eyes fell away from hers. "I... watched you for a long time. I felt your pain." A muscle jerked in his cheek, and he met her eyes again, his voice steadfast and emotionless once more. "I healed you out of... compassion."

Suddenly, Uriel's lecture about unnecessary healings made sense, and at the same time, Alex remembered every insult and disrespect she had thrown Castiel's way. Mortified and shellshocked, she struggled how to even put her thoughts into words.

"I... don't know what to... I... Castiel... thank you. I, I can never repay you." She wet her lips, trying to understand. She suddenly felt like she owed everything to this angel, but didn't understand how he could have skipped telling her this until now. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

Castiel seemed reluctant to answer. "I faced discipline. It was not ordained by God. I thought it best to not tell you."

Her heart sank, and she felt immense guilt. Alex approached him, distraught at the notion that he had risked so much for a human who had, so far, trashed him and rolled her eyes at him and believed the worst of him. "You—you gave me back what was mine. Nothing about that is wrong." She stumbled on words, trying to tell him everything, all at once. "I... you gave me what I always needed. And wanted." He met her gaze hesitantly, maybe uncomfortable with her attempts at thankfulness, maybe still unsure if he had done the right thing. "Look. I'm sorry. If I had known—" Alex touched him, grasping him gently at the forearms without thinking. He tensed, and frowned. She let go, awkwardly, not even sure why she'd done that. She attempted to finish speaking. "If I had known you were the one who did that..." she stopped, shaking her head and looking away for a moment, before looking back. "Thank you. Just, thank you." She felt incredibly repetitive and awkward, and suddenly didn't know what to do. Castiel, however, was looking at the Tilt-A-Whirl, and then the bumper kart corral.

"People ride these things?" He asked, effectively switching subjects, however unsubtle.

"Uh, yeah," Alex answered eloquently, thrown off. She looked at him curiously for a moment, mystified. "Haven't you been around since, uh, the dawn of time?"

"And before then, too," he answered, still looking around at the scenery in what might be called stern fascination.

"Okay, so why don't you know about, I don't know, handshakes and personal space and carnival rides?" Alex asked. Unlike her earlier questions to him, she wasn't being sarcastic or rude. She honestly wanted to know.

Cas smirked at that briefly, somehow finding humor in her question, and there were little smile lines crinkling the corners of his eyes. That was the first time she had seen him smile for real, lips turned upward, the expression reaching his eyes. "I suppose you could say..." he thought a moment, "I've missed a few of the details." He looked at her again. "Until I obtained my vessel I saw the world and humanity through a glass darkly."

"And when you got your vessel...?" Alex prompted.

His expression softened, and his eyes seemed to see someplace far away as he reflected. "Every day has held uncountable wonders. It's so complex, the human mind. Creation. People. Life."

Alex heard what he said, but couldn't identify... even though she wanted to. For a moment, she envied Cas. "Must be nice. To me it's all one damn crapfest after another."

"I suppose that's understandable," he said, his voice low. "All your life, you've been fighting."

"Yeah. Doesn't look like that's set to end anytime soon," she said, then remembered. "Well. Unless we can stop the apocalypse." She rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers tiredly. "Will we stop it from happening? Do we actually have a shot?"

Castiel took in a heavy breath and let it out, looking at her with grimness. "Times are dark. The future is very uncertain. Much will be lost."

Alex swallowed. She felt like her worst fears would become a reality. Something in the pit of her stomach was filled with such profound foreboding and dread. "Castiel," she almost pleaded, "I can't lose my brothers. I've watched Sam die. I've watched Dean die. I _can't_ do it again."

He seemed almost empathetic, his expression soft as he approached her. He didn't speak for a long moment. "You need to prepare yourself for that possibility."

Her stomach twisted at his words and she shook her head in denial. "They're all I've got left," she said, as if that would change something.

"I know," he replied softly. He came closer still, and reached out to her. She didn't shrink back, just watched him apprehensively. "It's time for you to wake up, Alex," he said, and two of his fingers came to softly touch her forehead. And then the fair, him, everything was gone, and she was waking up laying awkwardly in the back of the Impala. But she could still feel the warm buzz under her skin where his fingers had grazed. She laid there a moment, trying to process everything that had just happened in the dream. She was filled with a deep sadness that seemed to transcend sleepiness or grogginess.

She realized that the car wasn't running. It was silent, and neither Sam or Dean were inside. She could see that the sky outside was still dim, like the sun hadn't come up yet. She sat up slowly, casting glances around until she saw the familiar figures of her brothers—Sam's tall, broad-shouldered one, Dean's shorter, more compact—they were standing about twenty feet off from the car at the edge of a huge, open field. Alex scooted out of the car and went to her brothers, shivering a little. It was cold and damp, a morning where fog laid low, like a blanket, across the land. The sun would be up soon—the sky was a pale violet color, and frost crunched under her boots.

Her brothers acknowledged her arrival with a glance (Dean), and a tight smile (Sam). "November second," Sam said softly, eyes fixed on the horizon. "November second," Alex echoed quietly.

There was a long, heavy silence, all three of the Winchesters lost in their own thoughts and grief. Alex wanted so badly to tell them about the dream... about Castiel... about the feeling she couldn't shake that something horrible was going to happen. But she remained silent. Sam, finally spoke up softly. "You know, when I think about everything we've lost... all the complete crap we've been through... all because of _him_." They knew who Sam was talking about. Azazel.

"Wish I could have stopped it," Dean said softly. "I tried. I tried like hell. I could have prevented you from being pumped full of demon blood, Sam. I could have saved you from spending your life mute, Alex. Mom could have even lived, maybe. Dad would still be here." His voice was full of a pain and guilt he didn't deserve to carry, and Alex looked at him. It was hard to see very well in the dark, but he looked miserable.

"Hey." Alex demanded his gaze. "Dean. What Yellow Eyes did was not your fault, and it never will be. You took care of him—he got what was coming." She paused, reflecting somberly, staring down at the ground, her hands in her jacket pockets. "And this family, what's left of it, is stronger than what he threw at us. He tried to silence me, he tried to use Sam. He tried to rip us apart." She looked up at the brightening horizon. "Well. It didn't work."

"I'll drink to that," Dean said. He looked distracted, but gave her a half-smile. Sam put his arm around Alex, squeezing her shoulder tightly.

For another long moment, silence spanned the group. In the distance, a raven called. Sam wet his lips and then spoke to the air in front of him. "Mom. Wherever you are... I just hope we make you proud."

Alex stared out at the horizon, stone-faced. Castiel's words haunted her. _Times are dark. The future is very uncertain. Much will be lost._

* * *

They drove the rest of that day, mostly in silence and reflection. Alex went back and forth, trying to figure out how to bring up Cas's visit to her in the dream. She wasn't sure how exactly to explain it to her brothers... "oh yeah, by the way, Cas came to me in another secret dream and told me he's the one who gave me my voice back"—would that suffice? She let it go awhile and just spaced out, napping on and off, staring at the ceiling, picked apart the dream piece by piece in her mind. Wondering about Mom. Hoping Castiel was wrong about the apocalypse.

Finally, Dean declared that it was time to stop and eat. Dean picked a local bar and grill—the outside was decorated with a ridiculous dancing pineapple. They were seated inside, where Dean hungrily scanned the menu, and Alex sat there silently, feeling queasy. She exchanged a glance with Sam, who she knew wanted to ask Dean about Hell. He hadn't found an opportunity yet, and neither had she.

A scrawny pale guy in a bright vest covered in shiny, multicolored pins arrived to their table, an order pad in hand. He had the most ridiculous smile on his face, and Alex was immediately annoyed. "Alllllright folks, how we doing? Great!" the waiter said, without giving them a chance to reply. "Start you guys off with a chili dog dipper to share? Or a delicious MexiNacho fiesta?"

"No, we—" Sam started, but the waiter didn't hear him. "Get you guys a nice cheddar roaster burger, huh? Or our jalapeño Frito pie—it's great on days like this!" Days where your mom died? Days where you are about to confront your brother on what Hell was like? Days where an angel basically implied you would lose both of your brothers in the coming days?

"I'll have the chef salad," Sam said, and handed his menu over cautiously, as if the waiter might be contagious.

Dean snapped his menu shut. "Burger. With bacon. And cheese. All the toppings, extra onions. Do _not _burn it. Fries on the side. And bring me some three wise men shots." Dean's favorite... a blend of several kinds of whiskey.

"Sure thing! How many, man?"

"I dunno, let's start with eight," Dean said nonchalantly, to which the waiter's eyes went a little wide for a minute. He peered at Dean over to top of his notepad, trying to figure out if Dean were serious. Even Sam and Alex looked at Dean a little oddly.

"Uh, okie doke!" the waiter said, resuming his inhumanly wide smile. He turned to Alex. "And what for the lovely lady?"

"Nothing, thanks," she said with dismissal apathy. But the waiter's face went all sensitive, like she had just broken sad news to him. "Oh, come on now... how about our new smoky and sweet chicken-delishen sandwich? Super yummy!"

"No, I—"

"Or our in-house specialty, the firegrilled pineapple enchiladas? Yum-o!"

Alex gave him her best death glare. "I said _nothing_!"

His smile faltered, then was back with a vengeance. "Okay, well just let me know if you change your—"

"Just go away," Alex said peevishly, not looking at him anymore.

"Uh yeah, right on," the waiter said, still managing to sound upbeat. He scurried away.

"Me_ow_," Dean commented with a chuckle.

"You really should eat something, Alex," Sam said, his tone worried. "You've lost weight."

Alex ignored his comment, and cut to the chase. "Castiel is the one who gave me my voice back."

"_What_?" both brothers chorused, staring in disbelief.

"Yup. He showed up again in a dream of mine last night and... it was him."

There was a shocked silence.

"Did he say why?" Sam asked, incredulously.

"Yeah," she said, shrugging. "The goodness of his own heart."

Both of her brothers immediately looked suspicious and doubtful. "It wasn't a, you know, God thing?" Dean asked pointedly.

"Apparently not. He said he got in trouble for it."

"So he did it... on his own?" Dean surmised. He didn't look like he loved that sound of that.

"The plot thickens," Sam muttered, and Dean's face was working overtime, his expression confounded and then pissed and then doubtful. For the next few minutes, they theorized back and forth halfheartedly, and Dean ended it with an exasperated "Freakin' angels. Who knows!"

The food arrived in a few minutes, and Alex waited as long as humanly possible to bring up the next subject to her oldest brother. After maybe his fifth huge bite of his burger, and a couple of his shots, she charged forward. "So, listen Dean. Uriel paid us a visit yesterday." Sam stopped mid-bite, glancing at Alex before looking at Dean intently.

"How nice," Dean said flatly, and downed his third shot of the night.

Alex leaned forward over her folded arms, trying to get his attention. "Which part? The one where he threatened to turn Sam to dust when he uses his powers again, or the part where he told us to ask you what you remember from Hell?"

Dean almost choked on his shot. "Come again?"

"You heard me."

Dean looked between his siblings, and then seemed to draw the conclusion that they were ambushing him. He shook his head and jabbed a finger in each of their directions. "Okay, first of all, I don't remember Hell, at all. And second, when were you gonna tell me a damn angel threatened your life, Sam?"

"Forget the threat, Dean. That's neither here nor there. Why would Uriel tell me you remembered Hell if you didn't?"

"Maybe because he's a dick," Dean retorted gruffly. "Might have something to do with it."

"What, he told us that just to screw with our heads? That makes sense." Alex retorted. Did Dean really think they were that stupid?

"Yeah, I dunno! I mean this _is_ the angel who was ready to level an entire town. Look, I don't know what—"

"Radical!" The cheerful waiter from hell was back, and unaware of the argument he was interrupting. "What else can I get you guys?"

"Uh, I think we're fine," Sam said, trying to politely get rid of the waiter. It didn't work.

"Yeah? You guys don't wanna try a couple of fryer bombs? Or a chipotle chili changa?"

"Uh, no, thanks, we're good," Sam said, while Alex just gave the server an evil eye. This dude was too much, especially right now. The waiter looked over at her, his smile faltering a little. "Okay, awesome!" He then said, and left.

Dean glanced at Alex. "Look, honestly, I have no idea why Uriel told you what he did, okay?" He smiled a very sarcastic, acrimonious smile and attempted to down another shot. Alex's hand darted out and grabbed the shot glass right out of his hand just before he had it at his lips. "Hey!" Dean exclaimed. She had leaned back in her chair, holding the shot out of his reach. "You're _lying_." She accused.

"I am not! Give me my damn shot," Dean said, and swiped angrily at the shot glass. She did not comply, just stared at him, unamused.

"Okay, fine," Sam said, attempting to reason with Dean. "If you're not lying, you can look me in the eye and tell me you don't remember a thing from your time down under."

Sam waited expectantly, and Dean, rolling his eyes and sending an evil eye at Alex, looked Sam in the eye impatiently. "I don't remember a thing from my time down under. I don't remember, Sam!" Dean was agitated, and a couple people at a nearby table looked over curiously at the outburst.

"Look, Dean, we just wanna help," Sam said, trying to play the compassion card. Dean shot him down. "You know everything I do. Okay? That's all there is!"

"Outstanding!" Said the cheerful waiter, who seemed to reappear out of thin air. At the sight of him, Alex took the shot she'd kidnapped and downed it, much to Dean's dismay. "Dessert time? Huh? Am I right?"

"Dude," Dean said, losing patience, with the waiter and with his siblings both. "We don't want any," Alex said, her tone decidedly menacing. Still, the waiter's plastered smile didn't waver and he launched into another attempt at upselling. He leaned down over the table as if sharing some great secret with them. "You have _got_ to try our ice cream extreme. It's_ extreme_."

Alex crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. "Yeah, bring me some. I'll shove it right up—"

"Whoa, whoa. Just the check, man," Sam said, attempting a lighthearted chuckle to cover up his siblings rudeness.

"All right! Awesome!" The waiter whipped their bill out from behind his pin-studded vest and slapped it on the table before walking off, a ridiculous smile still on his face.

"Geez, Al, what's with bitch mode?" Dean asked, giving her a dirty look.

She returned the dirty look. "Give me another one of those." Before he could react, she had snatched another one of his shots.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, then "Dammit, Alex," when she drank it.

Sam just sighed, flustered and a little embarrassed. People were staring. Dean, protectively guarding the last couple shots he had, looked to Sam. "All right, so, where do we go from here?"

"I'm not sure," Sam said, "Uh, looks like it's been pretty quiet lately. No signs of demon activity, no omens or portents I can see."

"That's good news for once," Dean said, and reached for his glass of beer.

Alex made a sound like "_pssh_" and when he looked at her sullenly, she gave him a pointed look. "It's too quiet. Remember the whole apocalypse thing?"

Dean's expression soured slightly. "Trying not to."

Sam, who had pulled his laptop out, handed it over to Dean. "Here, check this out. Uh... up in Concrete, Washington, eyewitness reports of a ghost that's been haunting the showers of a women's health facility." Dean choked on his beer. "The victim claims that the ghost threw her down a flight of stairs." Dean threw his napkin onto his plate and crammed a couple last french fries into his mouth. Sam chuckled. "I can see you're very interested."

Dean was slapping down cash onto the table, suddenly in a huge hurry. "Women, showers. We have _got_ to save these people."

Even though she was pissed with him, Alex chuckled a little at typical Dean. "_Oooof _course we do," she said, to which he winked as he stood, already pushing the chair in and headed for the door.

"_Why_ do we let him stay in charge, again?" Alex asked Sam, who just shrugged helplessly, laughing a little. He got a little more serious, and pulled her back for a second as Dean walked ahead. "It'll come out, Alex. He'll tell us eventually. I know he will."

"Yeah..." Alex replied, but she wasn't sure. Dean had enough issues to fill the grand canyon, but almost always refused to face them. He was constantly on emotional lockdown... even to his family. Did he really remember the horrors of Hell? Why wouldn't he tell either her or Sam? Deeply troubled, Alex trailed her brothers out of the restaurant.

"Have a nice day! Come back and see us!" The waiter yelled after her, waving and smiling like he was saying goodbye to an old friend. It took all she had not to turn around and salute him with her middle finger.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Happy Valentine's day everyone! One day early, but you know ;) hope you enjoyed the chapter... what do you think of the long and revealing conversation between Cas and Alex?! It was a lot of fun to write the restaurant scene, too, and invent ridiculous menu items! Hope to hear from you in the reviews... let me know what you're thinking of the storyline and characters! XOXO!_


	11. Angels and Demons

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 11 / Angels and Demons

_"Don't get too close, it's dark inside. It's where my demons hide."  
_- Imagine Dragons

* * *

**One Week Later**

Alex paced the front porch of Bobby's house with increasing agitation, trying to reconcile everything that had happened the past few days. She hadn't slept, showered, or eaten any real food for a couple days now, and currently couldn't find an end to the things that were pissing her off. The very fact that _Ruby_ was here, at Bobby's house, was enough to send Alex through the roof, but oh no, there was more... earlier that week Sam came clean about his questionable relationship with the demon—with all the disgusting, shocking, R-rated details—and it left Alex completely mystified and detested. What had Sam been smoking? Demons were the enemy, period. Sam should not have involved himself with Ruby, especially not _that _way—it made Alex's skin crawl to think about it. Ruby's smug smiles and superior attitude were the icing on the damn cake, and Alex was all but ready to knife the bitch… too bad the demon blade had been stolen the other day. She huffed loudly as she turned on her heel, pacing the length of the porch again in the bitter cold of night. Alex wanted to punch something, but just clenched her fists and muttered obscenities aimed at life in general under her breath.

Ruby's presence wasn't the only thing wrong in the world right now. There was also Anna, a girl who could hear angels. They'd picked her up a couple days ago (at Ruby's insistence), and her presence was causing major problems. Demons were after her, and so were angels... and they had already had confrontations with both sides. The demons had attacked them in a church, and the angels had found them at the hunting cabin. Alex sighed tiredly, trying to remember a time in her life before the trouble that angels brought. Anna herself was a fallen angel, as they had found out earlier the same day. She'd discarded her "grace"—the thing that made her an angel, in order to become human. It made no sense to Alex. But when Castiel and Uriel had showed up, insisting Anna needed to die, things had really gotten bad. In short, these angels were really starting to piss her off. And she didn't understand Castiel's role in it all. She had thought, for a little while, that maybe he wasn't so bad.

"_Cas, please—" Sam had said, trying to appeal to Castiel's sensibility. He was standing between Castiel and the door to the bathroom, where Anna hid. But without hesitation, Castiel touched a finger to Sam's head, and Sam had crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Alex darted over to stand between between Cas and the door. She felt very small under his fierce gaze. He looked murderous, like he meant business. "Get out of the way, Alex," Castiel had said lowly, and stepped forward, but made no move to touch her. Alex had stared at him; confused, afraid, defiant. "Or what?" she spat. He never had a chance to reply. A strange pulsing light enveloped the cabin, and the angels had disappeared. A few minutes later, they learned that Anna did it—a warding trick that she'd remembered from her angel days._

Alex had actually begun to like Castiel after he admitted that he'd risked so much for her, but yet again she was left unsure what to think about him. For a bit, she thought maybe he had a real personality and compassion, that he might be more than a mindless machine. A hammer, as Dean had put it. It was frustrating, and was taking up too much of her thoughts. Alex gave up on pacing and went inside to check and see what Sam had found—their current plan was to get Anna's angel grace back and with that, she could have her powers back and be capable of protecting herself… and them.

In the study, the light was dim, and Sam was at the desk, hunched over a bunch of books and his laptop. Ruby was hanging back a little, and eyed Alex with no enthusiasm as she entered. Alex ignored her and leaned over the desk, peering down at the screen. "Find anything?

"Maybe…" Sam said, acknowledging her with a glance. "In March of eighty-five, a meteorite vanished in the night sky over northwestern Ohio. It was sighted nine months before Anna was born, and she was born in that part of Ohio."

"You're pretty buff for a nerd," Ruby commented, not hiding her flirty tone. Alex glanced her way, testily, and Ruby raised a single, insolent eyebrow. Sam seemed to miss the exchange, pointing to another part of the map. "Look, I think it was Anna and here, same time—another meteor over Kentucky." Alex looked away from Ruby, trying to focus on what Sam was saying.

"So that could be her grace...?" Alex guessed.

"Could be," Sam confirmed.

"All right. That just narrows it down to an entire state." Ruby said sarcastically, earning another cross glance.

"Look, it's a start," Sam said. Ruby sighed softly, suddenly seeming to be introspective. "Guys, I'm sorry."

Alex looked her way suspiciously. "For what?" Sam asked.

Ruby's face was apologetic, which Alex didn't buy for a second. "For bringing you this mess with Anna. If I had known, I would have kept my trap shut."

"Not all you should have kept shut," Alex muttered. Ruby didn't miss the comment. Her eyes glittered darkly, and she folded her arms, gazing at Alex challengingly. "I screwed your brother and he liked it. What are you gonna do about it?"

In a second, Alex had darted across the space separating them, and shoved Ruby up against the wall with violent force. "Shut your _fucking_ mouth, _bitch_!"

"Hey, get off her!" Sam had jumped up, attempting to pry Alex away, but Alex smacked him away brusquely, giving him a death glare, and he backed off, maybe stunned. Alex had a fistful of Ruby's shirt in her hand as she pushed the demon against the wall. Ruby was just smiling, as if she were pleased with Alex's reaction. Alex stared her down unflinchingly, getting in her face. "Do you remember who you're talking to, _Ruby_? Unlike my brother here, I could care less if you live or die—and you need to remember, just because you've been useful, and just because the demon blade is missing, doesn't mean I won't exorcise your ass right here and now." Ruby's smile faded, as if she had forgotten what exactly Alex was capable of. "So watch your damn mouth with me," Alex finished, and she let Ruby go with a strong shove, stepping back and not taking her eyes off the demon for a second. Sam was gaping at Alex, a little horrified, and even Ruby seemed momentarily stunned.

"Hey, come on," Sam said, gathering himself and trying to play peacemaker. "There's more important stuff going on right now besides our personal lives. We have a crisis to get through."

Ruby looked at Sam and narrowed her eyes "Uh, no. This is not something we just_ get through_. You _do not _want to get between these two armies. Angels and demons, it's like Godzilla and Mothra. If one side doesn't get us, the other one will."

"What's the matter? Scared of the halos?" Alex said sarcastically.

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Forget the angels. It's _Alastair_ I'm scared of."

"And who the hell is Alastair?" Alex demanded. She'd never heard the name before.

"You met him in the church?" Ruby said. "Practically the grand inquisitor downstairs. Picasso with a razor."

"And...?" Sam asked.

"_And_ if you know what's good for you, you'd throw him back in the pit." Ruby looked at Sam meaningfully, as if she were trying to tell him something, and Sam immediately reacted by looking away from her, as if guilty.

Alex looked between the pair suspiciously. "Huh? Am I missing something?"

"No." Ruby glanced at Alex darkly. "You just better pray that Anna gets her groove back, or we're all dead."

Alex folded her arms and pursed her lips. "We don't pray. We make things happen."

"Yeah, whatever," Ruby muttered, and walked out of the room with one backward glance at Sam. The outside door slammed behind her as she left the house. Alex turned on her brother as soon as she was out of earshot. "Okay, can you remind me why we're keeping her around? You know how I feel about that bitch, Sam."

He looked less than amused. "Yeah, you don't exactly try hard to hide your feelings on that," he muttered.

"She's a _demon_," Alex said vehemently, and Sam almost rolled his eyes in protest. "Who has _helped_ us countless times. Saved our_ lives_. She's different, Alex."

Alex stared at her twin in disgust. How he could actually believe that was beyond her. "Sam, she's_ not _different—not really. I don't know what her game is in all of this, but she's _not_ trustworthy." Sam opened his mouth to protest, but Alex held up a warning finger. His intended lecture or appeal would fall on deaf ears. "You _would _have a different opinion of her than me, Sam. After all, you _screwed_ her." Sam's expression went all hurt and angry, and Alex regretted her choice of words. She wet her lips. "Sorry, I shouldn't have… look. End of story, I don't trust her. I never have, and I never will."

Sam huffed in frustration, and his mouth worked oddly. He searched her eyes, his expression becoming pained. "Then trust _me._"

Alex looked at him silently for a long moment, wishing she could. Her eyes fell away. "After all the decisions you've made here lately?" Alex let out a heavy breath and met his eyes with sadness. "Sam. I don't think I can."

* * *

**The Next Day**

_Union, Kentucky_

Alex stalked over to where Dean was pacing the length of the abandoned barn they were currently staying in. After finding where Anna's grace had touched down a couple hours ago, they had quickly realized it was gone. Taken. With only the angel hex bags Ruby had made shielding them from Castiel and Uriel's eyes, it felt too exposed and dangerous. The long drive (twelve long, long hours) to Union had been one of the worst Alex could remember. She'd been stuck between Ruby and Anna in the backseat of the Impala, in uncomfortable silence. Not her favorite road trip ever.

"Okay, so what's the plan?" Alex demanded irritably of Dean, who stared back at her grouchily. They were all short on sleep, but she and Dean most of all. She hadn't slept in about three days now. Part of the reason she couldn't do it was an odd fear that Castiel would plague her dreams again. Maybe that was stupid, but she really didn't want to have to look at him right now… or talk to him… or think about him.

"We still got the hex bags. I say we head back to the panic room," Dean was saying, and Ruby rolled her eyes. "What, _forever_?" she asked, as if he were the dumbest person alive.

"I'm just thinking out loud!" Dean retorted.

"Oh, you call that thinking?" Ruby asked sarcastically.

"Will you _shut up_," Alex said, glaring at the demon sidelong. All day and night long, Ruby had been making sarcastic little comments and jabs, and each one seemed to take away a little bit more of Alex's already-thin patience. "You," Dean said accusingly as he pointed at Alex, "need to can the freakin' attitude."

"My _attitude_? What the fu—" Alex started. "Hey! Hey, hey, hey. Stop it. All of you." Sam said as he came into the barn. He and Anna were the only ones who hadn't blown a fuse in the past twenty four hours, but he seemed to be coming close after the constant bickering.

Ruby turned on Sam, her voice a little higher than normal, as if in fear. "Anna's grace is gone. _You understand_? She can't angel up, she can't protect us. We can't fight Heaven and Hell. One side maybe, but not both—"

"Um... guys?" Anna said, interrupting. She was staring into space oddly. "The angels are talking again." She immediately had everyone's attention. "What are they saying?" Sam asked intently.

"It's weird... Like a recording... a loop," Anna said, frowning. "It says, 'Dean Winchester gives us Anna by midnight, or…'" she trailed off, her expression gone still. "Or what?" Dean asked. Alex didn't miss the note of fear in his voice. Anna looked at him squarely in the eye. "...or we hurl him back to damnation." Dean's face was shocked, and he looked at Alex, then Sam, speechless.

"Son of a bitch," Alex exclaimed softly, then looked at Anna. "They're bluffing. Right?"

Anna was silent a long moment. "They're bluffing, _aren't they_?" Alex demanded louder, needing an answer _now_. Anna looked at Alex grimly. "I doubt it." she said. Alex felt her blood go cold, and her head felt strange, light. She looked at Dean, who was staring at the floor, clearly alarmed. No. Dean could _not_ go back—not now, and not ever.

"Anna, do you know of any weapon that works on an angel?" Sam was asking Anna. Surprised, Anna stared back at him. "To what? To kill them? Nothing we could get to... not right now."

Dean was shaking his head, trying to derail Sammy from the desperate idea. "Okay, wait, wait. I say we call Bobby. We get him back from hedonism."

Alex looked back at Dean sharply. "Dean he knows less than _we_ do about angels! What the hell is Bobby going to do?"

"I don't know, but we got to think of _something_!" Dean exclaimed, getting more riled.

"Just _kill_ her, and neither side gets her!" Alex burst out, breathless from desperation. Everyone in the room, even Ruby, looked at her in shock.

"Whoa, no. _No_." Dean said, recovering from his momentary shock and becoming angry once again. "That is not an option. Why would you even _suggest _that?"

"Because I'm pretty sure that's the _only_ option left here!" Alex said angrily. "Dean, I am _not _watching you die again because of some... some demon angel drama! If she's dead, the demons can't use her, the angels can't touch you—problem solved!"

"You don't get to decide that," Dean said, speaking with a rough finality that Alex didn't like. He shook his head, suddenly aghast, as if he couldn't believe what she had said. He was approaching her now. "We are not going to _kill _someone, Alex!"

At a loss, and angry, Alex spread her arms wide, trying to put into words the million thoughts that were jumbled in her brain. "Look, it's tragic. She's a nice girl, I get it. But you know, she got herself into this mess. Ripped out her grace, fell from Heaven. _Her_ choice! She had to know the angels would catch up to her eventually." She felt heartless saying it, but said it anyway. "Tough luck."

"Guys—" Sam interjected, but Dean held a hand up in Sam's face, staring Alex down, disappointed. "Really, Alex? That's all you got?"

Alex huffed. "Dean, we can't hide forever. Well the hell else are we supposed to _do_?"

"I don't know!" Dean shouted angrily, clearly at a loss and unhappy about it. He was now in her face. "But not _hand her over_, not _kill _her!"

"Then you'll die! _Again_!" Alex practically shouted, waiting for him to rethink, to remember, to come to his senses. But he stepped back, and shrugged. "Hey, it's just a risk we have to take."

"For _her_?" Alex demanded incredulously. Anna was watching the argument with extreme discomfort. "Some random girl? Come on, Dean! You cannot be serious!" She was shaking now, but managed to calm herself down, to speak a little steadier. "Dean—you went to Hell. I watched you _die_. And I refuse to let it happen again because of your—" she scowled, searching for the right term, "_savior_ complex."

Dean just looked at her darkly, shaking his head in what looked like disgusted annoyance. "Alex, you are _really _starting to piss me off," he said, and turned his back on her.

Alex stared at him in disbelief and hurt, then glanced at Sam for support, but he looked away, silently saying that he wanted no part of it. Alex's jaw clenched, and she realized she was all alone in this fight. She looked at Dean's back, angry. So, her concern for his life was starting to piss him off? She sneered in his direction. "Well the feeling's mutual, asshole."

And she stormed out, before anyone could see the tears.

* * *

Alex stalked out into where the woods began, a good twenty yards away from the barn, and there she promptly sank down into an awkward crouch, hugging her knees, burying her face there, and gritting her teeth tightly. She sobbed loudly, unable to control herself at all and hating herself for it. Dean didn't know. How bad it had hurt when he died. How bad it hurt that he didn't get how she _couldn't go through it_ again. He was an asshole. For not realizing how important it was to her that he _stay alive_.

"_What are we supposed to do without you, Dean?" Sam had asked tearfully. Dean had grown quiet, his emotions buried deep, but surfacing in his soft shaky voice. "Fight. Take care of my wheels. Remember what Dad taught you. Remember what I taught you. You two take care of each other, no matter what. I..." the clock striking midnight had cut him short. They had all known what the striking of the hour meant. Dean was a dead man. _

Alex stood up and shoved her hands into her jacket pockets savagely, staring into the night but seeing nothing but memories of that horrible night. Her worst nightmare, her most terrifying memory. It replayed in staccato scenes and sounds over her minds eye, and she squeezed her eyes shut, tried to think about something else. But she couldn't think of anything except the horrors of May the second.

_Dean's eyes, slowly traveling to his right as he heard the hound who had come to take him. Their frantic attempts to shut themselves in a room, to hold off the hellhound. Lilith revealing herself in Ruby's body and pinning Alex and Sam to the wall gleefully. The low throttling growl of the beast outside, waiting. Waiting. Alex had been glued helplessly to the wall, screaming as the doors flung open, letting in the hound, sealing Dean's fate. She had been unable to do anything, only listen to her brother's screams of agony—the sound of his flesh being torn apart. _

She tried not to remember these sounds, but they replayed over and over. Hot tears ran down her cheeks as the memories she had so carefully avoided for so long now resurfaced.

Lilith had tried to kill Sam as Dean lay dying, but somehow, it hadn't worked. Sam had almost killed the demon then and there, but she fled, a coward, just before he brought the blade down. Alex had dropped from where she had been pinned, free of the demon's grip. And then, the terrible silence.

_There Dean laid, lifeless. Sam went to him immediately, the demon blade clattering uselessly to the floor. But Alex just stood there, frozen, breathing oddly, something like gasps or sobs at the sight of Dean in a pool of his own blood. She had tried to walk, but instead collapsed to all fours and crawled over, her jeans becoming wet and stained in the pools of Dean's blood. Sam held Dean in his lap, as one might hold a child, tears running down his face. Dean's eyes staring at nothing, and his body was still, silent. He was gone. _

She had never felt such complete meshing of emotional distress upon her physical body. At that point, her vision had gone half out, her muscles had turned to water, her stomach had twisted into a thousand knots, and she couldn't stop shaking, as she wept in every sense of the word. Mind, body, and soul, crying out in sorrow and horror. She heard herself screaming unintelligible words, saw Sam shaking, his body wracked in sobs.

_She didn't want to believe it was real. If she walked away, out of the room, she was sure it would disappear. She stood up as if drunk, took three hazy steps, and collapsed, so lost in grief and pain. She crawled back to Sam, huddled near him, clutching Dean's leg and sobbing out unintelligibly. She just wanted to know that this wasn't real. That Dean would be okay. But it _was _real, and Dean was dead. Bobby had burst in a few moments later, but she didn't remember anything else._

She remembered digging Dean's grave in an empty lot of land. The three of them had done it in silence. Alex remembered how heavy the dirt had felt; how hard it had been to dig the grave... but how much harder to put the dirt back.

They had taken his amulet before they put him in the ground, and the ring he wore (Mom's wedding band). Alex had held them in the palm of her hand, and her heart had wanted to break in two. Surely this wasn't all that was left of him. After everything he'd done, the life he'd lived… why wasn't there more?

Bobby said things about Dean after that. Things like 'good man' and 'irreplaceable' but Alex hadn't been listening. She'd been asking herself, why, why, _why_. That was Dean. Her Dean. The invincible big brother who was never supposed to have died. And yet there he was. In a pine box, buried six feet under. _Gone forever._

The sound of footsteps crunching the leaves on the ground behind her alerted Alex to a new presence, and she hurriedly dashed her hands across her cheeks, trying to wipe away the evidence of her tears. "Hey," Dean's gruff voice said beside her. "Wanna tell me what the hell is wrong with you?" He sounded pissed.

Alex looked at him after a long moment, pained. His hard expression softened and he sighed. He'd never been able to stand the sight of her crying. "You okay?" He asked. Gentler this time.

She shook her head, laughed softly. "Of course not. Angels just threatened to send you back to… to Hell." She wiped her cheek one last time with her palm as Dean watched.

"Hey, I get it," he said, trying to sound lighthearted. "You don't want me dead. It's nice, really." Alex couldn't laugh at his attempt at playfulness. Her mind was in too dark a place. She shook her head vehemently and looked at him squarely. "I _can't _lose you again, Dean."

"You're not gonna," Dean said, his voice full of solid conviction.

"But you don't know that, not for sure," she protested. "We have no idea what the_ angels _are gonna do; let alone the friggin' demons!" He seemed to consider what she said, but shook his head. "Well, we have a plan," he said. "And if you'd stayed instead of storming out here like a three year old, maybe you would have heard it."

Alex pressed her mouth into a thin line and ignored the comment about her acting childish. "We've had plans before. And they don't _always _work, do they?"

"Yeah. Well." He put an arm around her, squeezing her arm reassuringly. A gesture of caring and concern. It was enough to set Alex in tears again. Only she looked down and away, taking a moment to control herself.

"Dean… you didn't see me after you... after you were gone," she said in a moment, softly, not looking at him. "I tried to get by. I _tried _to live life like everything was okay. But it _wasn't_. You died, Sam left. Suddenly I'm all alone. I mean, yeah, Bobby was there. But I was still completely alone." She chanced a glance up at him. He was looking at her intently, and he looked upset. "I couldn't _deal _with the pain, Dean. I got so wasted, so many nights. Hunting was the only thing that kept me going. And the killing? I… I liked it, in a way I never had before. Ripping vamps to shreds... ganking a Wendigo… hell, I even beat up some jackass one night in a bar. Cuz he called Bobby a name." She chuckled ruefully, before growing somber. "It was crazy. I don't know who that was. It was me but... I dunno."

"Damn." Dean's expression was mournful, as if he hadn't even thought of what kind of impact his absence would had made in her life. "I thought you were okay." He cleared his throat loudly, covering up the sound of his voice breaking. When he spoke again, it was in the low, gruff voice he usually used. "You know, sometimes I wish you didn't have to grow up in this life. Hunting."

Alex looked at him sharply. "Why? It's what I do. It's what I was born to do."

He looked uncomfortable, as if he weren't convinced. "Is it?"

"Yeah, it is," she said, and she meant it. Alex knew Dean was yet again feeling guilty and responsible for her. But there was nothing for him to regret. She had chosen this life a long time ago. "I know you wish I could live a normal life. But that's not me, Dean. I've never been normal." She smiled briefly at that, realizing how true it was, and how little she minded these days.

"Still. I guess I always wanted you to get out of this whole thing, deep down." He sighed heavily. "I was always afraid you'd get hurt, or miss out on life. I just never thought it was _me_ who would hurt you like that. Drive you to do that stuff." His arm that had been around her came away, and his hands went into his pockets. He was stone faced.

Alex was quiet for a minute, the heaviness of his words sinking in. "It's not your fault. It's not. Our life is total, complete dysfunction, you know?" They shared a brief exchange of mournful smiles. Alex sighed. "But it matters. The things we do."

"Protecting people," Dean interjected. Alex gave him a look—she knew where he was going with that. "Yes, some people. But Anna is not a regular person. She's an angel. And come on Dean, the person who needs protection right now is you." He looked at her from the corner of his eye, sullenly. "If I have to protect you from your own stupidity, Dean, I will."

He chuckled dryly, but seemed to have withdrawn mentally. "Yeah, you're a real hardass, aren't you," he said, his tone somewhere between sarcastic and displeased.

"Shut up, Dean," Alex said, trying to sound playful. Instead she just sounded bitter. She pressed her lips into a thin line, then looked at Dean in all seriousness. "I'll kill her if it means you stay alive. I don't want to. But I will. So find a damn solution. Or I will." The deadly, soft seriousness in her voice must have thrown him off. Instead of a sarcastic retort, Dean just looked at her, his expression unreadable. "Yeah," he said, and without anything else, he left. Alex watched him leave, wondering if he were mad, proud, or disappointed in her. She didn't care, or really, she _couldn't _care. Regardless of what he _felt_, Alex would kill Anna before letting Dean die.

A few moments passed, and Alex searched the stars in solemn silence. It was cold outside, but right now Alex liked it. She wanted to feel numb. She blinked sleepily. She really needed to get some rest, and soon, before she keeled over from exhaustion. A sudden voice to her left caused her to jump. "Hello, Alex."

Standing there in calm and quiet composure was Anna, her red hair shining in the moonlight. Great. "Anna," Alex greeted with no great enthusiasm. These damn angels and their penchants for sneaking up on people!

"Are you all right?" Anna asked, her tone sounding concerned. So, she wanted to try and earn a sympathy card from Alex. Well, that wasn't going to work. Alex crossed her arms. "I'm fine, thanks, how are you?" Alex answered sarcastically, and pointedly looked away, trying to send the message _leave me alone_.

Instead, Anna only came closer, and laid a soft, comforting hand on Alex's shoulder. "You're in so much pain."

Alex jerked away and glared at Anna. "You know what? I don't need you to come out here and try to make me like you. It's not going to happen."

Oddly enough, Anna smiled softly at that, as if what Alex said had pleased her. "This is why I love humanity. Such loyalty." She looked at Alex as if she could see through her every thought and motive. "Dean is lucky to have a sister who loves him so much." Anna's expression flickered, and she looked away. "I always thought how I would have liked to have a sibling."

Alex's forehead crinkled up in confusion. "See, that's what I don't get. Why would you _ever_ envy us? Humans are... a mess. No superhuman strength or telepathic powers. Just crap, and drama, and loss." She swallowed and looked away somberly. She thought of everything she had lived through. "Life is hard."

"Perhaps," Anna conceded, then looked at Alex directly. "But being an angel was harder."

"How?" Alex asked.

Anna looked sad, as if remembering the pain of an old wound. She thought for a long moment, and then spoke as if thinking out loud. "So many reasons, but maybe the biggest one was that I constantly longed, deep inside, secretly... for _more_. I knew something was missing."

Alex felt herself becoming interested, despite herself. "Did you find it here?"

Anna looked at Alex again. "Yes. I think so." She smiled, and it reached her eyes. Her expression softened, and again she touched Alex's shoulder. This time, she did not jerk away. "Alex. I know why you feel you should kill me, if it comes to that. I want you to know I understand."

Alex nodded and cleared her throat, looked away. "Okay, great." She let out a heavy, conceding breath and met Anna's gaze sidelong. "I hope we can find a solution, Anna. Really. I do."

Anna again smiled softly, but said nothing more. Alex shook her head tiredly and jerked her thumb in the direction of the barn. "Listen, I'm gonna head in. I need some sleep."

Anna nodded, graciously. "Rest well, Alex."

Alex left the tree line and headed for the dark shape of the barn, trying very hard not to like Anna. It would make everything easier if Anna were as horrible as Ruby. Alex rubbed her forehead tiredly, thinking to herself that she needed to find Sam before she collapsed. He'd be able to fill her in on whatever hare-brained plan they'd cooked up. Hopefully, whatever it was, wasn't too ornate, because her ability to focus was currently very threadbare. Alex was at the point where she was so sleepy that holding her eyelids felt like one hundred pound weights—she needed sleep more than anything right now, but dreaded what her dreams might bring. Hex bags couldn't protect your dreams, and Castiel seemed to think he could breeze in and out of her subconscious as he liked.

* * *

Alex looked up, suddenly aware of herself, and saw that she was standing in a grove of pine trees, in unnaturally bright moonlight. She whirled in anger, letting loose a "Dammit, Castiel!" even before she saw him. And sure enough, there he was, standing there and staring at her. "You have_ got_ to stop hijacking my dreams!" Alex groaned. "I can't get a decent night of shut eye without you showing up!"

"There are more important things for you to think about at this time," Castiel replied blankly. "I've come to ask you to make Dean give us Anna."

"Make him?" Alex gave him an incredulous look and approached him. "You don't think I _tried _that, Cas? Dean is the king of stubborn. He's made up his mind that he doesn't want to be responsible for killing an innocent girl."

"And you?" Castiel asked. His mood was more direct, more businesslike than in her other dreams, and she suddenly felt leery. "What's it to you?" she asked, eyes narrowed.

He seemed to be uncomfortable at that point, and looked away. "Alex, I do not want to kill Dean. In fact, I would very much dislike it. But if he will not relinquish Anna to us—" he looked at her earnestly, "—things will get ugly."

Alex shook her head, in disgust, in disappointment, but mostly in increasing anger. "You know, Cas, I don't know why you keep doing this to me. Making me think you're an okay guy, then proving me wrong." She angrily grabbed him with both of her hands by his coat lapels and shook him, earning an almost surprised frown from him. "This is my_ brother_ you're talking about sending back to Hell! He doesn't deserve that, and you know it!" She shouted. He stared at her unblinkingly, his clear blue eyes boring into hers. "Let go of me, Alex."

She stared at him, jaw squared. And then with a shove, she let go. He barely flinched. She took a deep, unhappy breath. "You know what, Castiel? I appreciate what you did for me. I really do." She gritted her teeth. She couldn't believe she was about to plead with this guy for mercy. She couldn't look him in the eye. "And if... if there is any of the same compassion in you, that you felt for me once… please, I'm begging you, don't anything happen to my brother." She looked him in the eye, finally. "_Please_."

He stared back at her as if he'd been stung. "_Compassion_," he spat, as if the word left a sour taste in his mouth, "is something I have no more of, for _any_ of you." He stared at her a second longer, his expression unreadable, and then he was gone, leaving Alex in shocked silence. What the _hell_?

* * *

It was early in the morning, and Ruby was gone to carry out her part of the plan. Sam was pacing the length of the barn, Anna was nervously standing around, and Dean, of course, was drinking. They were about to run the riskiest move of their life, so of course Dean needed some liquor. It didn't actually sound like the worst idea, Alex thought offhandedly. Tricking angels and demons into coming here was a long shot, but it was the only chance they had, she guessed. But, just in case it didn't work, she had one of Bobby's hunting knives holstered and hidden underneath the leg of her jeans. They had destroyed the angel hex bags a few minutes ago, and now were resigned to wait for the angels to arrive.

"Little early for that, isn't it?" Anna asked, watching Dean down the contents of his flask.

"It's never too early if your name is Dean Winchester," Alex said. Dean raised the flask to her, as if she had given him a great compliment.

At that moment, the barn doors opened, as if with a mighty blast of wind. Everyone leapt to their feet as Uriel and Castiel marched in—here went nothing. Sam and Dean stood protectively in front of Anna, and Alex stood beside Sam.

"Hello, Anna. It's good to see you," Castiel said. An odd greeting to give someone you were about to murder.

Sam was acting shocked. "How? How did you find us?" He paused and looked at his brother, as if at a loss. "Dean?"

"I'm sorry," Dean apologized, and sounded every bit the part. Alex was kind of impressed. She was trying to look confused, but wasn't sure if it was convincing or not.

"Why?" Sam asked, whisper soft. "Because they gave him a choice," Anna said. "They either kill me... or kill you. I know how their minds work." Anna turned to Dean, and they kissed. Alex didn't have to act surprised at that… was that a part of the plan they had left out telling her last night? She looked at Cas and Uriel—Uriel looked smug, but Cas actually seemed surprised, too. Anna pulled back from Dean and spoke to him softly. "You did the best you could. I forgive you." She looked at the angels. "Okay. No more tricks. No more running. I'm ready."

Alex looked at Dean—where the hell was Ruby? Could they stall any longer?

"I'm sorry," Castiel said to Anna, his voice wooden. He didn't sound sorry.

"No. You're not. Not really. You don't know the feeling," Anna said. Alex glanced at her briefly, not sure if she believed that.

"Still, we have a history," Castiel said, as if he understood he was expected to care, but couldn't bring himself to. "It's just—"

"Orders are orders," Anna finished for him. "I know. Just make it quick."

Sam and Dean were looking at each other sidelong, and Alex could could tell they were getting ready to attack the angels. That probably wouldn't go too well. But it didn't get to that point.

"Don't you touch a hair on that poor girl's head!" Came a new voice behind them. They whirled to see Alastair, two demon henchmen, and with them, a bleeding, crippled Ruby. Alastair tossed her to the side and stared the angels down. The Winchesters and Anna quickly moved aside, as Uriel advanced on the demon. "How dare you come in this room... you pussing sore…"

"Name-calling," Alastair tutted. "That hurt my feelings... you sanctimonious, fanatical prick."

"Turn around and walk away now," Castiel said, skipping the insults, his voice filled with warning.

"Sure. Just give us the girl," Alastair said, smiling slyly. "We'll make sure she gets punished good and proper."

"You know who we are and what we will do." Castiel stepped forward, deadly intent in his steps and expression. "I won't say it again. Leave now... or we lay you to waste."

"Think I'll take my chances," Alastair lisped, but there was no missing the hostile tone he had taken on. Alex grabbed Sam's arm. They were about to fight, just as predicted. It had sounded so good in theory, but now, Alex's stomach felt tight, and she looked at Castiel without a second thought, suddenly worried. What if—

She didn't have a chance to finish the thought. Uriel leapt forward and attacked one of Alastair's henchmen, and Castiel unleashed a series of unexpectedly quick and powerful uppercuts onto Alastair, stunning the demon momentarily. He placed his hand on Alastair's forehead, clearly about to exorcise him—but then, nothing happened. Confusion came across his face, even as Alastair grinned.

"Sorry, kiddo. Why don't you go run to daddy?" And Alastair knocked Castiel onto his back. The angel seemed stunned, momentarily unmoving. Alastair grabbed Cas by the lapels, and began shouting Latin. "_Potestas inferna, me confirma_," Alastair proclaimed, choking Castiel ruthlessly. Oh my God—was he _exorcising_ an angel? Was that even possible? For a second, Alex remained frozen—should she do something? Would that kill Castiel? She looked at Dean in horror. Castiel's face was contorted in pain. "_Potestas inferna, me confirma,_" Alastair continued, and Dean grabbed a crowbar up off the floor. "_Potestas inferma, me confirma!_"

Dean swung the crowbar at Alastair with power, knocking the demon off his feet momentarily. Castiel forgotten, Alastair set his sights on Dean and Sam. "Dean, Dean, Dean... I am so disappointed." He was now shouting through clenched teeth. "You had _such promise!_" He stretched out a hand, and the brothers both sank to the ground, writhing in pain.

In the scuffle, Alex had somehow been forgotten—she didn't have time to reflect on why, only had time to act. Without a second thought, she grabbed the dropped crowbar and swung it at Alastair with all of her strength, striking him across the face. The demon reeled, staggering back a step or two and holding a hand to his face. Standing feebly between the demon and her brothers and Castiel, all of whom were on the ground and useless, Alex felt like a kitten facing down a lion. She shook from both fear and anger as she stared in the face of evil. Alastair chuckled strangely and licked his lips, recovering. She gripped the crowbar like a baseball bat, waiting for him to do something. "Alex, no!" Dean managed to shout through agony.

Alastair smiled at her, a creepy effect. "Ah yes, littlest Winchester, can't forget about you!" He yanked the crowbar out of her hand telepathically, where it came to his hand. He tested the weight in his hand casually, as Alex backed up slowly. The back of her foot hit something—Castiel's leg. Alastair examined the crowbar with apparent great interest, swaggering toward her casually. "My, I would love to have you come visit me, stay awhile... get to know the fam... because if you're anything like your brother..." he grinned wickedly, "You would be a true joy to have around." He winked at her, and gripped the crowbar tight. With relish, he drew back, and slammed the crowbar into her stomach with superhuman strength. Pain exploded, and she felt bones breaking. She felt herself flying backward, where her shoulder ruthlessly smashed into one of the barn support beams—she heard the popping crunch of her shoulder dislocating through ears that had gone fuzzy. Alex was all but screaming through gritted teeth in pain, mostly oblivious to what was happening. Sam was trying to crawl over to her, even as he writhed in pain. Somewhere nearby, Alastair was laughing.

Alex heard Uriel shout "No!" followed by Anna's frantic rising voice. "Shut your eyes. Shut your eyes! _Shut your eyes!_"

Alex, limp and dazed, couldn't move at all, her body was in shock. She was sprawled there on her back helplessly, propped on one elbow awkwardly. She felt a hand coming up over her eyes, and light brighter than she could stand pulsed behind it, even with her eyes closed, even with the hand there. There was a sound like an explosion, and then wind gusted over them, as if a tornado had torn through the place. Alex opened her eyes and through the pain, squinted to see who had covered her eyes. Its owner was Castiel, who was breathing hard, still on the ground, looking at her. He had somehow crawled over to her without her noticing, and was beside her, on his side.

She grimaced, in so much pain, to the point where she couldn't breathe. She heard Dean, somewhere nearby, bellowing. "Well, what are you guys waiting for? Go get Anna. Unless, of course, you're scared!"

Alex looked at Castiel again. His eyes met hers, and she heard a desperate, broken groan of pain come from deep inside of her throat. Cas looked almost alarmed at the sound. It was an expression that she had never seen on his face. He glanced at Uriel in hesitation, then back at her. She whimpered a little as she took a breath, grimacing painfully. And with decisiveness, Castiel reached out, his large hand coming to rest on her rib cage, his eyes locking onto hers once again. She took in a sharp breath of air in relief or surprise or maybe both. A rush of comfort, warmth, and relief came over her, spreading out from beneath where his hand was against her. Something about the touch felt intimate and gentle, and she could only stare back at him, her heart beating faster than it had before. His face, handsome and grim, was close to her, his eyes searching hers, and she was caught there, entranced. She felt confusion come over her—but then it was done, his hand was gone, and he had stood up to join Uriel, without a second glance back at her. "This isn't over," Uriel was saying, and Dean said something smart back.

Sam had rushed over to Alex, trying to help her up gently. "You're hurt—" he started, his expression concerned.

"No... no, I'm... fine." She held a hand against the part of her stomach and side that had hurt so badly just a moment before, in shock. "I'm... completely fine." She looked at her twin with a dumbfounded expression. Sam swallowed, seeming to understand. "Cas?" he asked. Alex nodded, dazed. "Yeah."

Dean shook his head tiredly, and looked at the spot where Anna had disappeared from. He seemed particularly affected by her disappearing act. But Alex was lost in her own thoughts. _Castiel's harsh words echoed in her mind. __Compassion is something I have no more of, for any of you_. She stared at where he'd been standing just a minute before. _Then why, Cas—why do you keep fixing me, and giving me these little moments where I can't believe that? _

* * *

**One Hour Later**

The Kentucky landscape whizzed by outside, and once again everything was as it should be. Just the three of them—no demons, no angels. They'd left Ruby behind, thankfully. Alex couldn't say the same for Anna… she felt odd remembering the angel. What had happened to her? Maybe they would never know. Right now, Alex was just looking forward to finding a diner, a motel, and a shower. And more sleep. Answers could come later. Without really thinking about it, she laid her hand over her ribs where Castiel's hand had rested. Somehow she doubted she had seen the last of him. But owing him so much, and with the debt growing almost every time she met him, she felt uneasy.

In the driver's seat, Dean gave a huge, tired sigh, interrupting her thoughts. "Ah, screw this, I need a beer," he said, and pulled into a gas station. About ten minutes later they were parked on a back road, cracking open their beers. Sam sat on the hood of the Impala with his bottle, and Dean leaned up next to him. Alex handed Dean his beer and sat beside him, just above the wheel.

"To surviving yet another impossible situation," Sam said lightly while raising his bottle up. "I can't believe we made it out of there," Dean replied with, a soft, disbelieving laugh.

"Story of our lives," Alex said, raising her beer bottle too. Sam and Dean clinked theirs against hers, and it was bottoms up. After taking a big swallow, Alex wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket. "So do you think we'll see her again?" she asked.

"Who, Anna?" Dean asked, then shrugged. "Probably. I mean, can't seem to keep these damn angels away."

Alex chuckled sardonically. She agreed with him more than he knew. Sam looked at Alex sidelong. He had a sly little smile on his face. "So exactly _how_ many times has Cas saved your life now?" He grinned outright… he was teasing her.

Alex rolled her eyes and wrinkled her nose in quick succession. "I'm trying not to keep count." She grew a little more serious. "I don't like owing my life to anyone." She was suddenly interested in peeling the label off her beer.

"Well, I don't mind it," Dean said, and flashed her a smirk. Alex just rolled her eyes in good humor at him.

They were quiet a couple minutes, then Dean cleared his throat. "I know you heard him."

"Huh?" Sam asked.

"Alastair. What he said... about how I had promise," Dean said. Alex became very interested at this point, stopping mid-guzzle.

"Yeah..." Sam replied.

"You're not curious?" Dean asked.

"Dean, I'm damn curious. But you're not talking about Hell, and I'm not pushing."

Alex, however, swallowed her beer quickly and butted in. "Well, _I'll_ bite. What did he mean by that?" She peered up at Dean's profile, which was dark and thoughtful. "What happened to you down there?"

Dean swallowed, staring into the distance. He didn't speak for a long moment. "It wasn't four months, you know. It was four months and change up here, but down there... I don't know. Time's different. It was more like 40 years."

Sam and Alex exchanged shocked glanced. "Forty years?" Alex breathed in disbelief. "How..." she trailed off, speechless. "My God," Sam whispered.

Dean swallowed. "They, uh... they sliced and carved and tore at me in ways that you…" he took a deep breath. "Until there was nothing left. And then, suddenly... I would be whole again... like magic... just so they could start in all over. And Alastair... at the end of every day... every one... he would come and he would make me an offer. To take me off the rack... if I put souls on... if I started the torturing. And every day, I told him to stick it where the sun shines. For thirty years, I told him." Dean's voice wavered now. "But then I couldn't do it anymore, guys. I _couldn't_. And I got off that rack." His voice became even more unsteady, broken and limping with deep pain. "God help me, I got right off it, and I started ripping them apart. I lost count of how many souls." A tear rolled down his cheek. "The—the things that I did to them."

He went silent, and Alex put a hand on his shoulder gingerly. "Don't think about that," Alex said, unsure what else to say.

"It's _all _I can think about," Dean said, choking.

"Dean... Dean, look, you held out for 30 years," Sam said gently. "That's longer than anyone would have."

Dean had a hand over his face, and his shoulders shook. "How I feel... This... inside me... I wish I couldn't feel anything. I wish I couldn't feel a damn thing." His voice broke in agony, and he didn't bother hiding his tears, his sobs.

Sam and Alex were speechless, truly speechless. Alex enveloped her big brother in a tight hug, and he crushed her in his arms, weeping openly, burying his face in her shoulder. Sam hung back, his expression pained and afraid. Alex tried to make her voice sound stronger than she felt. "You're okay now. You're okay," she repeated over and over, softly, to keep from breaking down herself. "You're okay," she said again. But she knew he wasn't. None of them were.

* * *

_Author's Notes: __Sorry about the long wait for this chapter, guys! But it was important to me to get the dialogue and scenes right :D hope you enjoyed it! I have to say I am so thankful for everyone who is reading, following, and reviewing this story. It is so much fun to write (maybe even more so because I have two brothers…? I know how sibling drama works, ha!). I love the support I've gotten for this story and am stoked for the next few chapters. As always, I await your kind reviews and feedback! ^_^ also, does anyone in the world hate Ruby as much as Alex does?! Wowww lol. _

_Shoutouts to the VERY AWESOME reviewers of the past couple chapters... RedTigerGypsy, niamheternal, GracefulWolvesInTheNight, charisma26, LisaMack, Into the Nothing, neki, rikku94, and Guest (I liked it, keep going… you made me LOL!). Thanks for making my day, guys! _


	12. After School Special

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 12 / After School Special

_"Years have gone, I'm broken; I've left the past unspoken. Those years oh, they haunt me still._"  
- Alter Bridge_  
_

* * *

**One Month, Two Weeks Later**

"Nothing but Christmas crap on," Dean grumbled, and threw down the remote to the motel TV. Alex walked by where he sat, her arms overloaded with their duffel bags, backpacks, and a sleeping bag. She dumped the stuff in the corner of the room as Sam entered their room with a couple plastic bags and a twelve pack of beer. He plopped the goods down on one of the twin beds and began pulling things out of the bags, naming them as he laid them down. "Beef jerky, granola bars, pop tarts, canned chicken, some cracker things, M&Ms, hot dogs with no buns, and the very last box of…" he grimaced, "Uh, sort of squished cupcakes."

Alex grabbed the box from him in excitement, examining the red-frosted, green-sprinkled cupcakes with a huge grin. Even though they had gotten a little smeared, they still looked perfect to her. Dean, however, looked heartbroken. "No _pie_?" he asked.

"Sorry Dean, this is pretty much all the gas station had," Sam apologized.

"I wanted _pie_," Dean muttered sulkily. He grabbed a beer instead with grumpy gusto, earning a sympathetic if amused smile from Sam.

"But why would you want soggy pastry filled with gooey fruit stuff when you could have _these_?" Alex asked, holding out the plastic container. "It's mini cakes. With _frosting_. And _sprinkles_!"

"Ehh," Dean grumbled, eyeing the cupcakes with disinterest. "It's not Christmas without pie."

"_None_ of this stuff says Christmas, Dean," Sam replied, chuckling.

"Yeah well merry friggin' Christmas to us," Dean replied, and sat down on the bed with his beer, his expression foul. Sam and Alex exchanged a glance and simultaneous shrugs behind Dean's back. Alex set the cupcakes down, watching her oldest brother out of the corner of her eye.

Alex was pretty sure Dean was so grumpy for a few reasons… one, he was hungry. Two, he was tired. Three, he was Dean. But more than those reasons, she had a hunch that he was a little more sullen than usual because he had forgotten today was Christmas day—they all had forgotten, actually. The past month they had been hunting nonstop, too busy to even keep track of what day it was. So when they realized today was Christmas (they made the discovery at a closed drive-thru), Dean had turned surly, probably beating himself up over it. Her oldest brother had never personally been too into stuff like holidays or birthdays but when it came to Alex and Sam, he had always tried to give them something normal, something dependable. He'd made a point to always at least remember their birthday, and he always tried to do something special for Christmas. Even Dad hadn't always managed that.

The sound of singing and shouting on TV caught Alex's attention, and she glanced at the black and white movie that was currently playing. _"Look, Daddy! Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings!" A little girl shouted, and her father, grinning ear to ear, replied "That's right, that's right!" _Alex frowned and picked up the remote from where Dean had tossed it and changed the channel. _"Coming up next on Lifetime—it's _Christmas Angel_, the new Della Reese movie that's sure to—"_ she switched channels again, this time to a local news station, where a man was being interviewed standing in front of a bunch of Christmas trees._ "I'm so thankful for the Salvation Army, those people are angels! Just _angels_! If they hadn't got my kids all these great gifts—"_ Alex switched off the TV entirely, a little spooked at all the angel references. Dean and Sam had begun opening up the food, and hadn't noticed. Alex nervously swallowed and glanced back at the TV. Angels. She'd been trying_ not _to think about them lately. Her eyes darted toward her duffel bag, where one of the angel hex bags Ruby had given them remained. Alex had kept it without telling either of her brothers, and wasn't sure what they'd think of that if they found out. She was in the process of figuring out how to make more of them… however, some of the elements were still a mystery to her, and she needed more time to research it.

The past month there had been no sign of angels. No dream appearances, nothing. No Castiel, no Uriel, no Anna. And while Alex thought this should make her feel better, the silence felt more eerie than anything else. Mostly because she had _expected_ to see Castiel in her dreams. So far he'd proven to enjoy the hobby of dream-crashing, and seemed keen on interrupting hers. Every time before shutting her eyes to sleep one of her last thoughts had been _will he show up tonight?_ But he hadn't. At first she'd been relieved, but now she was beginning to feel uneasy... _worried_. And unhappy that she was worried. She'd caught herself wondering if maybe he were injured after his fight with Alastair... or maybe he'd become angry that she was using hex bags to hide herself and her brothers from him... or maybe he didn't care either way and she was over thinking things. Maybe he got in trouble for healing her again. She hoped not. The amount of time she had spent wondering about him was embarrassing.

"Hey, space case," Dean's voice said, cutting through her thoughts. He seemed to have recovered from his sadness over pie, and was popping M&Ms into his mouth. "Wanna play poker? Loser has to sleep on the floor," he grinned and motioned toward the sleeping bag. Alex looked at the two twin beds in the motel room… they looked about as comfortable as the floor was, but Dean looked excited to play cards.

She grabbed some cards from him and wiggled her eyebrows. "Hope you like sleeping on the ground." She pointed at him threateningly, in jest. "You're going down."

* * *

**One Week Later**

"Thanks Bobby," Sam said, and snapped his phone shut. Alex looked up from the Dad's journal in her lap. Dean, at the wheel of the Impala, looked at Sam questioningly. "Do either of you guys remember Truman High?" Sam asked, receiving blank stares from his siblings. "We went there for, I dunno, maybe a month?"

Alex tried to remember, but after being to at _least_ thirty different schools over the course of her life, she couldn't remember the names.

"Home of the Bombers?" Dean asked, squinting in thought.

"That's the one," Sam confirmed.

"Ah," Dean said, and sounded a little put off. "I hated that place."

Alex chuckled in the back seat. "You hated all of them."

Dean glanced at her in the rear view mirror. Sam, in information-relay mode, sounded almost excited as he explained. "Bobby said some girl there murdered a classmate pretty brutally… but she's now saying that she had no control of herself when it happened. Like someone or something made her do it."

"So, vengeful spirit? Possession?"

"Only one way to be sure," Sam said, and Dean nodded in agreement. "We go interview the girl."

And just like that, it was settled. Alex absently flipped to a new page in the journal, then hissed in pain. "Ouch!" she exclaimed, and stuck her finger in her mouth. "Paper cut," she mumbled at the questioning look she got from Sam.

"Better call Cas," Dean joked, and grinned at Sam, who was chuckling at the comment. Alex rolled her eyes, trying to play it off, but it kind of rubbed her the wrong way. It was true… the last couple times she'd been injured, Castiel had made it all better, but it made her look and feel weak, deep down. She didn't like having to be protected or watched after like a child. Dean glanced at her in the rearview and upon seeing her sour expression he grinned even bigger. "Me_ow_," he said, his favorite comment to make when he thought she was being dramatic. Alex reached up and slapped the back of his head. "Ow!"

* * *

**Sioux City, Indiana**

The three Winchesters had just gotten into town, checked into a motel, and now were about to head right back out again. "All right, I'm going to the mental ward to talk to the girl," Sam said, and Dean nodded agreement. "You go to the crazy bin, Alex and me will go see what we can dig up at the school."

Alex cleared her throat, setting down her duffel gently on one of the beds. "I'm not going."

"Why not?" Dean asked, immediately looking suspicious.

Sam, gentler, frowned slightly in concern. "Come on, we could use you on this one."

"You've both got this," Alex said, trying to sound like she was okay. "You don't need me." She faltered and pressed her mouth into a thin line for a minute. "I just… really, really don't want to go back there. To any school we used to go to." She looked at them silently, hoping they would understand and not make her say anything else.

The brothers exchanged a glance, and from the way they looked at each other, Alex knew that they knew exactly _why _she was didn't want to, but Dean looked hesitant. Alex's tongue darted out to wet her lips. "I'll do laundry," she heard herself volunteer. The statement of a truly desperate woman. "For both of you. All of your dirty... disgusting laundry." She felt herself grimacing just thinking about all of the sweat-stained, musty, damp clothes, the smelly socks that would be crammed up into weird little balls she'd have to unknot, and then there would be the underwear. Yuck.

Dean's face had lit up at the prospect of skipping the laundromat, and he put his arm around her, clapped her on the shoulder. "You had me at laundry."

* * *

**1997**

_Sam and Alex stood in a place they stood very often. In front of a new class in the middle of the school year and in the middle of the class period. A sea of unfamiliar faces stared back at them as the teacher made the awkward, necessary introductions. _

"_Is there anything you'd like to tell us about yourself?" the teacher, Mr. Wyatt, was asking. Sam shrugged. "Not really."_

_The teacher turned to Alex. "What about you, Alex?"_

_Alex just looked down, her ears burning. How many times would she have to live this God awful moment? Sam stepped a little closer, protectively, and addressed the teacher and the class alike, his voice stronger when he spoke about his little sister. "Alex is mute. She can't talk. But she can hear fine and write good, and do everything else anyone else could." Little gasps sounded throughout the room, and Alex heard snickers following shortly after. _

_This _always _happened, without fail. Dad was too busy to get any paperwork transferred over to let teachers or staff know about her condition. More than half the time when she started at a new school, Sam or Dean had to literally tell her teachers about her muteness. Sometimes teachers didn't believe them at first. And they were always so horrified that she didn't know sign language.  
_

"_Oh," said the teacher, sounding thoroughly surprised at Sam's admission. Mr. Wyatt's tone took on a kinder, gentler quality that Alex despised. As if she were to be pitied or babied. "Do you sign, Alex?"_

_Ashamed again and angry too, Alex shook her head, barely able to lift her eyes from the ground. __Sam would usually explain that she had never really learned it, that they'd always been too busy and moved too much—tons of excuses and stories that left Alex in a cloud of embarrassment and self-hatred. You'd think she'd get used to it, but it was horrible each time. _ "Well, there's nothing to worry about, Alex," the teacher said. "This is an environment for learning. And I can tell you're a smart girl. You'll do fine."

Yeah, for the two weeks I'm here. If that,_ she thought._ _She looked at the teacher without any real expression, just ready to find her seat, to be out from in front of everyone. "You kids go ahead and grab a seat," Mr. Wyatt said, and Sam led the way. Alex tried not to look anyone in the eye, just kept her head down and followed her twin. _

_Sam took a seat at one of the empty desks, and Alex found one one behind and to the side of him at a desk behind a kind of bigger kid. On either side of her, she could feel the gaping stares from the other students. Her ears were burning again, and her cheeks felt hot too. She wished she never had to start at a new school ever again._

_As the teacher began to talk, the kid in front of her began to flick the ear of the kid in front of him—a kind of small guy with dark hair and dorky glasses. Alex watched from underneath her eyelashes, feeling even more anger course through her veins. Sam was giving the bully the evil eye, sidelong, across the aisle. "Leave him alone," Sam whispered, and the bully smirked back at him. _

"_Shh, I'm going for a record," the kid replied, flicking without stopping. _

"_I said, leave him alone." Sam's voice carried a certain dark quality that seemed to catch the guy's attention, and he thrust his chin out, a dare. "You want to take his place, midget?"_

_Sam was glaring bullets. "Yeah. Sure."_

_Alex watched Sam switch seats with the kid who was being picked on. In about thirty seconds flat, the bully started to flick Sam's ear. Alex couldn't hear the teacher or pay attention to anything else than that. Anger boiled in her veins, and she clenched at her desk until her knuckles went white, but she forced herself to remain still. Dad had been pretty clear... no fighting in this school, period. _

* * *

At the West Palm motel, Alex eyed the pile of dirty laundry heaped up on one of the beds. The pile was a lot bigger than she had thought it'd be. Either way, the laundromat could wait. First, she was going to try to figure out the rest of the hex bag contents. She wanted to be able to make more of them, if she needed to. She'd been trying to figure some of the more mysterious elements out for a couple weeks now, but it was hard when she had to sneak the bag around like she did. She heaved her duffel onto the bed, noticing the zipper was half open. Alex rifled through her duffel, looking for the hex bag... but couldn't seem to find it. Growing anxious, she dug through it again, and began tossing shirts aside. "Where the hell are you?" she demanded out loud.

* * *

Castiel had become aware that he could sense Alex again perhaps ten minutes ago, and relieved to be able to carry out his protection duties once again, he went to where she was. He kept himself invisible to her—after all, he was only there to check on her and lay eyes on her. He looked around, seeing that she was in another unremarkable, run down motel room. She was leaned over one of the twin beds and somewhat frantically rummaging through a bag, grabbing articles of clothing and tossing them out carelessly, then lifting the bag up and shaking it, as if waiting for something to fall out. "Dammit," she swore, and then looked around the room frantically. She knelt and looked under the beds, then knocked a pile of dirty clothes over, rummaging through it, then stepped back, turned in a circle. She seemed to be looking for something, but to no avail. She let a huge woosh of air out from her mouth, rolled her eyes, put her hands on her hips, and closed her eyes. She shook her head and muttered something about "paranoid" and "stupid" and began picking the clothes back up, tossing them into a bigger pile on the other bed.

Castiel watched her closely, wondering why she'd been hidden from himself and the heavenly host for more than a whole month now. It prevented him from attending to his calling to protect her, which mystified him. He didn't understand why, but she seemed to repelled by him overall, even though he'd helped her so many times. He'd thought of using a dream again and asking her why she was hiding, as well as commanding her to end it—but doing so seemed risky. After the ordeal with Anna, Castiel had been called to answer to Raphael, who had reprimanded Castiel for his increasingly close relationship to both Alex and Dean Winchester. He had been told not to contact them on his own unless under divine direction. Uriel and Raphael had not known of his visits to the two Winchesters in dreams, but if he were to chance it and be caught… it would more than likely be considered disobedience. Even the thought of the word_ disobedience_ set an uneasy feeling in the pit of the stomach of his vessel. To an angel, unquestioning, automatic obedience was of the highest value.

Alex finished piling up the laundry, her back turned to Castiel. Without any warning whatsoever, she yanked her dark green tank top off and over her head, leaving herself completely naked from the waist up. Stunned into stillness, Castiel gaped at the sight of her bare back: the light olive skin, the strong shoulders and the dark tumbling hair scattered across them, the shallow dip of her spine running down the center, the distinctly womanly shape made by the gentle curve of her hips as they met the solid dark line of her jeans...

Alex threw the discarded shirt toward the pile of laundry, and turned to the side, reaching for a clean shirt. In a fumbling alarm he had never felt before, Castiel left before he could see more, the sense that he _should not be there _making him react faster than he had in a long time. He gave no thought to where he was going, only _away_. The feet of his vessel met a new ground... stone... but he was too busy listening to the blood thunder in his ears to pay attention to where he was. His vessel felt very strange—the mouth felt dry, the heart rate was elevated, the breathing was faster than normal, and there was a completely alien sensation somewhere below the stomach. It wasn't unpleasant or painful, but not having felt it before left him slightly alarmed. He shook himself mentally. He had seen human nudity before, of course he had—he'd existed for thousands and thousands of years—but seeing it through the eyes of his vessel for the first time had left him feeling shaken up. It had only been a glance at a woman's back! Why was his vessel reacting so strangely? Perhaps the vessel were faulty. He was distracted by the nearby sound of a child shrieking with laughter.

He looked around, and saw he was standing in the middle of a tall stone path that was about twenty feet off the ground, and bordered by stone walls. He looked to his left, and then his right, seeing that this wall continued into the distance both ways, past where he could even see. A group of people with strange little bags they wore around their waists passed by, one of the women chasing after a laughing toddler. The father, presumably, put a camera to his face and snapped a picture, then grinned at his family. "What do you think, kids?! Huh? The Great Wall of China! Pretty cool!"

Castiel stared in surprise. China? He felt acute embarrassment at the realization that he had lost complete control for a moment, not even knowing where he was going. That had never happened before. He hoped none of his angel brethren had witnessed his fumble.

* * *

**A Few Hours Later**

Alex slammed the door of the dryer shut, glad to have that over with, at least mostly. In her back pocket, her phone began to ring. Sam's number. "Hey," she answered, balancing the phone against her shoulder as she counted the quarters she had left in her hands.

"Hey," said Sam's voice. "So, we think we have this figured out. Do you happen to remember Barry?"

Alex frowned, stopping her quarter-counting momentarily. "The kid with the glasses? The one that guy Dirk was bothering constantly?"

"That's him," Sam confirmed. "We're on our way to go salt and burn him."

Alex felt a wave of sadness at that. "Poor Barry," she murmured.

"Yeah," Sam said, sounding similarly saddened. She could hear him take a deep breath, trying to push past it. "So, we'll be back soon. Maybe a couple hours."

"Okay. See you then," Alex said, and they hung up. She stared at her phone for a few seconds, the quarters in her right hand forgotten. Barry. Not only was the kid dead, but his ghost was killing people? It was easier to do this job when you didn't know the ghosts personally.

* * *

**1997**

**A Couple Weeks Later**

"_Yo! Sammy! Alex!" Dean waved at his siblings, walking by with a blonde girl who was probably a cheerleader. _

"_That's your brother with Amanda Heckerling?" Barry asked, sounding kind of awed. "He's cool."_

"_Yeah. He thinks so," said Sam, and glanced at Alex. They knew better, and grinned at each other. The moment was cut short by the arrival of Dirk… the guy who had been making life miserable for all three of them the past couple of weeks. Alex's good mood dissolved immediately._

"_Hey, tough guy," he said, sneering. "I been looking for you and your freak sister. Still want to take Barry's place? Or maybe your ugly sister would?" He snickered at Alex, whose blood was beginning to boil._

"_Get out of here, Barry," Sam said in a low, threatening tone. Barry was growing anxious, and seemed to anticipate that help was needed. "I'll go get a teacher," he said, and scurried off. _

"_You want to go?" Dirk asked, grinning sadistically at Sam. _

"_I'm not gonna fight you, Dirk," Sam said, which only made Dirk laugh. "Why not? You chicken? Come on!"_

"_No." Sam said, and without a warning Dirk reeled back and punched Sam hard enough to knock him over. The second she'd seen Dirk drawing his fist back, Alex had dropped her backpack and lunged forward, putting all of her strength into backhanding Dirk across the face. Stunned, he stumbled backwards and Alex followed through, slamming into him and tackling him to the ground. On top of him, she began pummeling his face with her fists, even as he screamed protests of "Get off, get off!" — but Alex was seeing red, remembering the cruel insults he had lobbed at her, the tripping in the hallways, the dropped school lunches, the way he had tried to make Sam look weak and stupid. _

"_Stop that!" A teacher was suddenly yelling, and she was being pulled off Dirk. Another teacher was kneeling by Dirk, who was curled onto his side, moaning or crying, maybe both. Alex, breathing heavily, her face flushed, looked around, expecting to see amazed faces. Instead, she saw shock, fear, and disdain. All the kids were looking at her as if _she_ were the freak. And then she saw Sam, who was still on the ground, looking at her as if he'd been betrayed. "He needs his freak of a sister to fight for him?" She heard someone say. Her heart sank even as she was being steered away by the teacher. _

"_Young lady, come with me. You're going to see the principle," Mr. Wyatt said, sounding very flustered. The kids stepped aside as he steered her along, and Alex heard whispers and mutters about "crazy," "like a serial killer," "probably on drugs." She had to chew the inside of her mouth to bite back the tears. She wouldn't let them see her cry. Not now, not ever. _

* * *

"_Young lady, this behavior is very worrisome. I'm going to call your parents right now," the principle was saying. Alex, slouched in the sticky pleather seat, just looked at him. _Good luck with that, _she thought._

_Dean burst into the principle's office without so much as knocking. The principle stood, caught off guard by the sudden entrance. "And who, sir, are you?" he asked. _

"_That's my little sister you got there," Dean said, in regular form—foul-tempered and fired up. _

_The principle narrowed his eyes, taking in Dean warily. "I see. She started a fight in the hall, and refuses to talk to me about why."_

_Dean's expression dropped momentarily, before becoming infuriated. "She's _mute_—she can't speak! What is wrong with you people?! How do you even—" he cut himself short, jaw clenched shut, eyes shut, maybe thinking better of what he was about to say. _

"_I wasn't made aware of—" the principle began, trying to maintain a neutral tone and professional posture. "Well you're aware now!" Dean fired back, and gruffly grasped Alex's arm, pulling her to her feet. "Let's go, Al."_

"_You can't just leave!" The principle exclaimed, his voice raising an octave. _

"_Watch me!" Dean retorted, not even looking back, already halfway out the door with Alex in front of him. He marched her down the hall wordlessly, and Alex was suddenly worried that Dean was angry with her. That would be the cherry on top of the crappy ice cream sundae. Dean stopped eventually in the empty hallway and took Alex by both of her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. She did so reluctantly. _

"_Listen, Al. I heard what happened." At her baleful expression, he almost chuckled. "Word travels fast in high school—didn't I tell you? That's beside the point. Don't feel bad. I can tell you feel bad. Defending Sammy was the right thing to do, okay? Don't listen to these freaks."_

_Alex grabbed the mini notepad and pen she always had jammed in her back pocket, and scribbled as Dean waited. _**Sam is mad at me.**

_He looked at the words and then at her, frowning. "What the hell for? For sticking up for him?"_

_She shrugged, as if to say 'I guess.' The bell rang, and classes began to change. Kids flooded out all around them, and Dean sighed. "Well, you know what? We won't be at this hell hole for much longer."_

_Alex nodded, and Dean let go, put his hands in his pockets, and held her gaze. He always did that when she was upset. Looked at her a long time, trying to gauge if she were better or not. Sometimes she liked it, and sometimes she hated it. Today, it just made her feel worse._

_A boy from her english class walked by, and laughed. "Freak!" he said as he walked by, and held up his fists, imitating her. Dean turned sharply, stepping toward the kid, physically blocking his path. "Did I hear you right, punk?"_

_The kid, who was quite a bit smaller than Dean, gaped, and he was suddenly Mr. There's-No-Problem-Here. "Whoa dude, chill. This isn't your problem."_

"_Like hell it isn't, you little asshole," Dean said, towering over the kid and staring down at him menacingly. The kid's face had quickly become twisted in fear, and he had backed up against a locker. Dean leaned in. "Mess with my little sister and I'm coming after you. No ifs, ands, or buts. Got it?"_

"_Uh yeah, yeah!" the kid said, his voice squeaking awkwardly. He backed up a few steps, glanced at Alex, and turned and hurried away. _

"_Come on, I'm walking you to class," Dean said, and motioned for her to come with him. Alex looked back at the kid who had called her a freak, and catching him looking at her over his shoulder, she threw up her middle finger at him before continuing on her way. Yeah, she made more enemies than friends these days, but at least there was one thing she could count on.__ Falling into stride with Dean and looking up at him as the walked, Alex felt momentarily safer. She wished she could tell him, right now, how kickass he was, and how much she wanted to be like him when she grew up. _

* * *

**Present - The Next Day**

Dean and Alex sat in the Impala, parked outside of the school. Sam was inside the school, visiting an old teacher, and Alex was in Sam's usual seat. "I'm kind of glad it wasn't Barry," Alex was saying. "Sad that it was Dirk. Kind of makes sense though."

"Yeah," Dean said. "Sucks that we got it wrong at first, though."

Alex grimaced, hoping that somehow Barry's relatives wouldn't learn about the dug up grave, the burned bones… oops. She and Dean traded wan expressions, then Dean turned up the music a little—Aerosmith, Train Kept A Rollin'. One of their favorites.

"Can you pop the trunk?" Alex asked after a minute. She hadn't thought of it until now, but that's probably where the hex bag had fallen out of her duffel. She hopped out and pulled the trunk up after Dean popped it. It was packed pretty tightly back in there—weapons, supplies, ammo, duffels, backpacks, a couple extra pairs of shoes, a cooler, some dry goods… Alex pawed through it all slowly, trying not to mess up the carefully crammed contents.

"Looking for this?" Dean asked, and Alex started. He was standing beside her, holding up the hex bag with a grim expression on his face. She looked from it to him, caught. "Uh, maybe," she said feebly.

"Found it in the trunk when we took care of Barry," Dean said.

"Oh." Alex said.

"Yeah. Oh." He didn't look too happy. "Wanna tell me why didn't you tell me we still had this?"

Alex squirmed a little. "Don't get pissed… I just... I dunno. I thought maybe you would take it apart." He raised his eyebrows as if to say '_and_?'

Alex tried to explain herself, fumbling a little. "I just want to know more about angels before we let them come around all the time, you know? This hex bag is the only thing we know of to keep angels away from us."

Dean smiled briefly, an expression laced with irony. "And I thought _I_ was the paranoid one."

"In my experience, extra caution often saves our asses," Alex pointed out. "I don't like it, Dean. Maybe angels are okay dudes deep down, but whoever's giving orders… well, so far the orders have been a bunch of crap. Do we want to be running around in plain sight? We don't know what we're up against."

"Maybe not, but that wasn't your call to make," Dean said tersely, then sighed heavily. "I'm not as ready to decide angels are the bag guys as you are. Not yet." He shook a few contents out of the hex bag, leaving some still inside. "Let's roll the dice and see where we land." He handed her the half-empty hex bag. "You keep this stuff, I'll keep the rest. If we need it, we'll use it. But not any sooner."

Alex wasn't exactly happy, but she accepted the bag. "I never said I thought angels were the bad guys," she said sullenly.

Dean just gave her a superior look.

* * *

Sam left Mr. Wyatt's classroom, glad he'd taken the time to visit his old teacher. The halls were deserted, and his footsteps echoed in the empty space. He rounded the corner, going back out the way he had come in. He looked up and did a double take, then stopped short. A tall, dark haired woman waited there, leaned up against the lockers just by the glass door he'd come in.

"Ruby! How the hell… what are you doing here?"

"Doesn't matter," she said, and folded her arms, coming to meet him. "Why are you avoiding me?"

Sam scoffed defensively. "I'm not _avoiding_ you."

Ruby stepped closer, her voice lowering. "Have you thought about what I told you?"

Sam's tongue darted out between his lips nervously, and his voice lowered, too. "I'm not doing that any more."

Ruby's dark eyes held his and her lips curved upwards in a smile. "You keep telling yourself that, Sam." Her eyes went to his lips, and her expression took on a sultry quality. "I know you want to." She touched his arms gently, leaned in a little closer, her voice dropping to a whisper, her eyes capturing his. "It's all you think about, Sam. You can't wait to have another taste."

Sam pulled away, grimacing. His heart was hammering fast, from a mixture of fear, revulsion, and worst of all, _desire_. Ruby chuckled, as if his behavior were cute. "Stop fighting it Sam. It's not gonna go away." She again came close to him, pressing her body against his. He let her, even though he squeezed his eyes shut for a couple seconds. "When you're ready… you know where to find me."

She walked a few steps away, then paused, turning and looking back. She looked and sounded suddenly soft, sympathetic. "It must be so hard for you to be the odd one out."

Sam narrowed his eyes at her. "What are you talking about?"

Ruby came back a couple steps. "Your brother and sister… they see you as a freak. As an outsider. The one with the demon blood." She looked at him openly, with a soft smile. "I accept you, Sam. And soon you'll see I really mean that."

Sam's jaw twitched. "My family is none of your business."

"Sure," Ruby said, her coy smile not faltering even for a second. "I'll be seeing you, Sammy."

And she turned and walked away. Sam watched her go, then looked through the glass door where he could make out the Impala, his siblings waiting for him inside of it. He listened to the sound of Ruby's footsteps fading out, realizing how true Ruby's words had rung for him. He was beginning to feel like he didn't belong where he currently was. He felt less and less able to be himself with Dean and Alex, and more and more desperate to do something about this _disease _inside himself. Every day, all day, he thought about demon blood and the power it gave him, the rush of pleasure and confidence. On the outside, he was Sam, but on the inside, he wasn't sure who he was anymore. He was stuck in the middle, unsure of where to turn.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ Ahh, you guys, I am so humbled! 50+ reviews and 60+ followers and 30+ favorites. Seriously?! Thank you. Thank you. You make my day every day with the support and encouragement! Hope you enjoyed this chapter… it's another one of those kind of filler chapters, but hopefully you liked the scenes and perhaps, especially, the one with Cas… teehee, it was so fun to write! :D _

_Also, I made a Cas/Alex music video you can see by going to (dot com). Please enjoy! _


	13. King of Hell

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 13 / King of Hell

_"Am I going insane? My blood is boiling inside of my veins. An evil feeling attacks; my body's shaking, there's no turning back._"  
- Bullet for My Valentine_  
_

* * *

**A Week Later**

It was late at night, and Alex was feeling particularly emotionally drained. She stared out of the window of the Impala unseeingly. No music played—the car was silent except for the hum of the engines. The mood in the car was somber, as it should be. They had just been to Pamela Barnes' funeral. The psychic had died a couple days ago helping them save a seal from being broken, but it seemed so trivial. It seemed so pointless and stupid. The task of stopping these so-called seals was too big for them, and deep down, Alex was afraid they would fail before they even began. She tried not to think about the alarmingly fast rate that friends and fellow hunters were dying. These were dark, dark days.

Dean pulled into a motel, muttering something about needing "some friggin' sleep," and Sam silently went to go check them in. Dean and Alex said nothing as they waited, both lost in their own thoughts. Sam came back with their room key, and like usual, they all grabbed their stuff and went to find their room.

"Ah, home crappy home," Dean muttered, breaking the silence as they entered the dark room. Sam flipped on the lights, Alex close behind him. That was when they saw that they were not alone. The three of them stopped short at the sight of Castiel and Uriel in their motel room._ Oh no_, is all Alex could think.

"Ah. We've been waiting for you," Uriel said, stepping forward toward them. Alex looked from him to Castiel, who hung back. He was staring blankly ahead, unseeingly. He didn't meet her gaze, and immediately she felt that something was off. It had been a couple months, hadn't it, since she'd laid eyes on either angel…? Any time they showed up, there was trouble. But last time she'd seen him, he'd saved her life and stared at her like—well, she didn't know _what_ like.

"Oh come on, guys!" Dean was protesting, dismayed to find his plans of sleeping might not succeed.

"You are needed," Uriel said, ignoring Dean's comment. Dean's temper was shorter than normal. "Needed? We just got _back_ from needed!"

One of Uriel's eyebrows twitched slightly. "Now, you mind your_ tone_ with me."

"No, _you_ mind your damn tone with _us_," Dean fired back hotly. "We just got back from Pamela's funeral," Sam explained, as if that would change Uriel's approach. Uriel's face remained blank, and Castiel switched from staring into space to staring at the ground, unwilling to meet anyone's gaze.

"You know, psychic Pamela?" Dean said acridly, attempting to jog the angels' memories. "Cas, you remember her, right? You burned her eyes out. Remember that? Good times." No response from Cas. "Yeah, then she died saving one of your precious seals," Dean continued angrily, his voice growing in timbre by the second. "So maybe you can stop pushing us around like chess pieces for _five freaking minutes!_"

There was a short silence, and Uriel stepped forward, his stance intended to be threatening. "We raised you out of hell for _our_ purposes," he said, as if that solved everything.

"Yeah, what were those again? What, _exactly, _did you want from me?" Dean asked, his tone completely insolent. Uriel stepped a little closer still, his voice lowering. Beside Alex, Sam tensed. Uriel spoke through his teeth. "Start with _gratitude_."

"Dean, we know this is difficult to understand," Cas said, breaking his silence and stepping forward, seemingly attempting to pacify the rising conflict between Dean and Uriel.

"And we—" Uriel gave Castiel a pointed look, stopping the other angel in his tracks, "—don't _care_." Chastened, Castiel again fell silent, not acknowledging Alex's questioning stare. Uriel continued to address Dean. "Now, seven angels have been murdered, all of them from our garrison. The last one was killed tonight."

"Angels can be killed?" Alex asked in surprise, attention piqued. "By what, by demons?"

"How are they doing it?" Dean asked, sounding similarly caught off guard.

Uriel let out a slow breath through his nostrils. "We don't know."

The Winchesters exchanged looks. "I'm sorry, but what do you want us to do about it?" Sam asked, voicing what they were all thinking. "I mean, a demon with the juice to ice angels has to be out of our league, right?"

"_We_ can handle the demons, thank you very much," Uriel said icily, and drew back a bit. "Once we find whoever it is," Castiel added.

"So what the hell is it you guys need?" Alex asked, exasperated, tired, and sick of running around in conversation circles.

"We have Alastair," Castiel said, yet again avoiding actually answering the question.

Dean smiled humorlessly. "How nice for you. He should be able to name your trigger man."

"He won't talk," Cas explained. "Alastair's will is very strong. We've arrived at an impasse." Alex still didn't see where the angels were going with this, and just shook her head in fatigue. She wanted sleep more than anything else.

"Yeah, well, he's like a black belt in torture," Dean said, shrugging. "I mean, you guys are out of your league."

"That's why we've come to his student," Uriel said. "You happen to be the most qualified interrogator we've got."

"_What_?" Alex exclaimed, suddenly understanding, and feeling as though they had been ambushed. Dean was slack jawed, unable to respond. "Dean, you are our best hope," Castiel began, but Dean was shaking his head, his jaw clenched. "No. No way. You can't ask me to do this, Cas. Not this."

Uriel, who had retreated a few steps, was now walking toward Dean. "Who said anything about asking?" he asked. And without the slightest warning, Alex was suddenly standing in a dark and cold room. In alarm Alex looked to her right, where Dean thankfully stood, just as he had a second ago. But where was Sam? They both turned around, to see Castiel and Uriel standing a few feet off.

"Son of a bitch," Dean growled, and Alex shot him a look. "I _told_ you we should have kept that hex bag in once piece," she said, receiving an irritated glance from her brother. He leveled Castiel with a glare. "Where are we?"

Alex looked up, noticing the numerous sharp hooks that hung from the ceiling. The room was cold and clammy, like a meat locker. Castiel ignored Dean's question and walked to them, then past them, to a solid metal door that had a small, hazy glass window in it. Dean followed the angel, and Alex slowly followed suit, on guard. Through the little window in the door they could see a tall, wiry man chained to a hexacle that was erected in the middle of a devil's trap. His head lolled onto his chest, and he seemed to be panting in pain. Alastair. He was in a different vessel than the one he'd been in last time. Next to Alex, Dean's body had gone rigid.

"This devil's trap is old Enochian," Castiel said. "He's bound completely."

Dean looked through the glass, his expression unreadable, and Alex stared at him in alarm. "You're not _actually_ thinking about doing this?" she asked in a tense whisper, which he only acknowledged with a glance.

"Fascinating, Cas," Dean commented to the angel who stood behind him. Dean grabbed Alex by the arm, steering her along with him, toward the other end of the room. Castiel watched, frowning in lack of understanding.

"Where are you going?" Uriel, who had been silently observing stepped into the Winchester's path.

"You're out of your damn mind if you think we're staying here," Dean said. "Now get out of the way," Dean demanded, at which Uriel merely blinked. "Angels are _dying_, boy."

"And why, exactly, is that our concern?" Alex asked contemptuously.

Uriel's gaze came to rest on her. He made no attempt to disguise his sneer. "Because I say it is, imp."

"Hey, I get it," Dean said, letting go of Alex and stepping a little more into Uriel's space. "You're all-powerful. You can make me do whatever you want. But you can't make me do this." He looked back at Castiel, who still stood by the door to Alastair's torture chamber. Dean looked as if he expected the angel to back him up or be on his side, but Cas's expression was dour. "This is too much to ask, Dean, _I_ know." He came forward a little. "But we have to ask it."

"Find someone else! Not Dean," Alex protested, and Castiel finally looked at her in the eye. "There is _no one else_ who can do this for us," he said, leaving her to stare at him, confounded.

"Why the hell did you bring Alex along, anyway?" Dean demanded, looking at Cas first, and then Uriel. "To make her watch this twisted little show of yours? You are some sick sons of bitches, you know that?"

Uriel smiled at Dean, as if he were amused. "She's here as leverage." Neither Winchester missed his meaning. "I thought she was protected!" Dean exclaimed in dismay, and he looked at Castiel in confused agitation. Castiel looked almost mournful, but said nothing, only looked at Alex, then away.

"I received new revelation yesterday," Uriel said. "The guardianship of Alex Winchester has ended."

"How _convenient_," Alex commented acidly, glaring at Uriel in mistrust.

"It's most regrettable," Castiel said, and Alex looked back at him angrily. He almost did look sorry. Almost. She looked away sullenly.

Dean crossed his arms, staring at Uriel stonily. "I want to talk to Cas. Alone."

"Fine," Uriel said, surprisingly compliant. "I'll go seek revelation. We might have some further orders."

"Well, get some donuts while you're out," Dean said, earning a chuckle from Uriel. It was a deep, rich sound. "Ah, this one just won't quit, will he? I think I'm starting to see what Castiel likes about you, boy." And then he vanished, leaving Alex, Dean, and Castiel alone.

"You guys don't walk enough. You're gonna get flabby," Dean commented sarcastically to Cas, whose face only registered concentration. "You know, I'm starting to think junkless has a better sense of humor than you do," Dean said when he got no reaction.

Castiel's eyes narrowed. "Uriel's the funniest angel in the garrison. Ask anyone."

Dean and Alex exchanged a glance, then Dean fixed Castiel with an intent gaze. "What's going on here, Cas? Since when does Uriel put a leash on you?"

"My superiors have begun to question my sympathies," he said vaguely.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Alex asked, and Castiel's expression flickered.

"I was getting too close to the humans in my charge." He looked at Dean. "You." And then at Alex, sidelong. "And you. They feel I've begun to express emotions. The doorways to doubt. This can impair my judgment."

"Or un-brainwash you?" Alex suggested. "Forget that. Cas, just get us out of here."

A muscle in his jaw jerked and he looked at her sternly. "No. I don't have the authority or permission to release you."

Dean scoffed. "So they knock you down the ladder and put _Uriel _in charge?"

Cas's frown deepened slightly. "He is a proud and able instrument of God."

"The demotion… doesn't it get your loincloth in a twist?" Dean asked.

Cas looked away, as if in irritation. "It is what it is, to me." Alex looked at him intently—she thought, just for a moment, that she heard a touch of hurt in that deep, husky voice of his.

Dean took in a deep breath, letting it out heavily as he slowly went back to the door that Alastair was behind. "Well tell Uriel, or whoever…" He stared into the room for a moment. "You do _not_ want me doing this, trust me."

"Want it, no. But I have been told we need it," Castiel said. "And if you refuse… Uriel has ordered me to… convince you." Dean looked back at Cas with a murderous expression. "You mean… using her." He looked at Alex, who went slack jawed and looked at Castiel in dismay. The angel was looking at her with an unreadable expression and Alex looked at him in shocked betrayal—surely he was just bluffing…?

Dean shook his head, disgusted. "You_ son of a bitch_." He turned back around, falling alarmingly quiet. There was a long pause. "Please, Dean," Castiel said quietly. "Just... do as we ask." He glanced at Alex, his eyes hooded. She didn't know what to think. Dean's shoulders seemed slumped and heavy, and she could hear the pain in his voice when he spoke again. "Cas—if I open that door and walk through it, you will not like what walks back out."

Cas said nothing, and sensing that time and options were running out, Alex tried one last desperate plea. "Please, Cas. Listen to him. Don't make him do this. You can _help _us."

He wouldn't look at her, only stared ahead, his face like stone. "You both _know_ what we're fighting for. What we're dying for. What Pamela died for. You know what will happen if we fail." There was a long silence, and Cas looked toward Dean. "For what it's worth, I would give anything not to have you do this." Alex scoffed at his hypocrisy.

Dean turned around, his features set like rock. "Yeah." He looked ill. "I'll do it."

"No! Dean—" Alex protested, but Dean shook his head, coming to her. "I have to."

Alex shook her head in feeble protest, Dean's horrifying words about his time in Hell resounding in her mind. She was consumed with fear for him, and was terrified that if he went in, he'd come back broken once and for all. "Don't go in there," she begged, her voice cracking from the onset of sudden, helpless tears.

"Sorry, kiddo. I've already made up my mind," Dean said softly, and gave her his best attempt at a smile. He grasped her shoulder reassuringly, then looked toward Castiel, his expression becoming intense. "Cas... do not let her see what I'm going to do in there."

And wordlessly, he turned and went through the door. Alex stared after her brother, completely aghast. The door shut behind him with a resounding clang, and silence settled over the room. Alex stared at the door, a little breathless. Her heart was racing. "Shouldn't someone be in there with him?"

"No," Cas said behind her, and she heard him coming to the spot beside her. "He must do this alone." A moment of silence passed. "Your empathy and compassion for your brother is commendable."

"It's _natural_," she retorted angrily, and looked at him pointedly. "Do you _know_ what that jerkwad Alastair put Dean through downstairs? The pain, the suffering? And now you're doing the same thing. _Forcing _him to torture again, after all he's been through." She scoffed darkly. "An angel doing pretty much what the king demon did. Ironic, isn't it."

Cas looked like he was considering what she'd said, his ever-present frown momentarily replaced by an oddly pensive expression. "I understand that you're angry with me. But this must be taken care of. And Dean was our last hope. We exhausted all other avenues. Please, understand that."

She just shook her head and fell silent. After a minute or two, she looked at him glancingly. "So, what's this crap about God's little protective orders on me going poof? You buy that?"

"Yes. I'm no longer your protector," Castiel replied matter-of-factly.

Alex looked at him, a twinge of hurt sadness passing through her. "Just like that?"

He was looking into the space in front of him. "Yes. It's for the best, I think."

"Why?" Alex asked.

Cas's expression was strange. "What I said before. My superiors saw that I was becoming too attached. Too emotional."

"You. Emotional. That's friggin' rich," Alex muttered. She looked at him sidelong, her sadness giving way to contempt. "So, if Dean had refused. Were you _really _prepared to, you know, _torture_ me to get him to do what you wanted?"

"Dean _didn't_ refuse," Castiel said, looking down at the floor, sidestepping the question entirely. There was a disappointed silence on Alex's part. "So, basically, yes," she supposed out loud. He said nothing. She felt a cruel sense of betrayal, followed by discouragement that she had allowed herself to trust him, in however small a way. She looked away. "I guess I just had this crazy feeling you actually cared about me a little bit," she said. She sounded bitter and hurt. "Guess I was wrong. About all of it."

Castiel's jaw clenched and he looked up slightly. He didn't answer. They heard a loud scream in the other room, and Alex shut her eyes tightly, wishing she and Dean were anywhere else but here. That he'd kept the hex bag intact. Another scream followed, and then another, and another. Alex looked at Cas, who finally met her gaze. She didn't bother to hide her hurt, betrayed expression. He stared back, looking strangely affected. Then he got up and walked a few steps away, his back to her, where she could only see his stern profile. A few tense minutes passed, with Alastair's screams punctuating the silence, and sometimes Dean's shouts, indistinct, echoed in between.

A sudden movement to her left caused Alex to look up from where she had taken a seat on an empty metal table. A newcomer, Anna, had appeared. Castiel saw her too. "Anna," he greeted dryly.

"Hello, Castiel. Alex."

"Anna," Alex greeted neutrally, looking at her apprehensively. "You here to join the fun?"

Anna's expression was grim. "No. I'm here to end it."

"You shouldn't be here," Cas said, approaching her. "We still have orders to kill you."

"Somehow I don't think you'll try," Anna said. "Why are you letting Dean do this?"

"He's doing God's work," Cas replied stoically. Another one of Alastair's screams rang out, and Anna's expression was pained. "Torturing? That's God's work? Stop him, Cas, please. Before you ruin the one real weapon you have." Alex felt a twinge of unease at what Anna was inferring—Dean was a weapon?

Cas shook his head. "Who are we to question the will of God?"

"Unless this _isn't_ his will," Anna said. Alex watched the exchange with growing intrigue—Cas seemed to be listening, or at least considering what Anna was suggesting.

"If not God, then where do the orders come from?" he asked.

"I don't know. One of our superiors, maybe, but not him."

Another scream broke the silence, and Anna grew earnest, pleading. "The father you love. You think he wants this? You think he'd ask this of you? You think _this_ is righteous?" Castiel couldn't meet her questioning gaze. "What you're feeling right now? It's called doubt." She touched his hand, a subtle action Alex didn't miss. Cas looked at her hand in puzzlement. "These orders are wrong and you know it. But you can do the right thing. You're afraid, Cas. I was too. But _together_, we can still—"

"Together?" Castiel repeated, and yanked his hand away, his thoughtful expression turning hard and deadly. "I am nothing like you. You fell. Go."

"Cas…" Anna said, but Castiel's voice shook with murder. "_Go._" She looked at him sadly, but then did as he said. Cas looked shaken and angry.

"Harsh," Alex commented wryly.

Castiel looked at her sharply. "She suggested blasphemy."

Alex stood up confrontationally from where she had been sitting on the table. "She suggested using your freaking brain."

"It's not that simple," Cas replied, his voice decidedly agitated.

"It sure as hell sounds that simple, Cas," Alex said, crossing her arms and approaching the angel. "You need to _wake up_. Something is wrong here, very wrong. Why can't you see it?" Alex paused. "And you know what? I have ten times the amount of respect for Anna than I do for you. Because she questions things and decides herself what's wrong or right. She isn't a blind follower like you."

She seemed to have touched a nerve—Cas snapped, whirling on her. "I am not _blind_!" he thundered. Alex looked at him in mild surprise. "And that, my friend, is called denial," she said, even as she was wondering if maybe the angels were right. Maybe he_ was_ beginning to become emotional.

Cas's jaw worked oddly, and he looked at her contemptuously. "You speak as if you know everything. You know _nothing_." At that point he seemed to remember himself and swallowed, his expression falling away. "It's—" he started, then frowning, looked toward the cell. "No."

"Cas?" Alex asked, looking around in confusion. He had disappeared. A sudden, terrifying thought came to her, and she dashed to the the door of the room where Alastair was, peering through the glass. What she saw sent horror reeling through her, and she yanked the door open, rushing in, only to be slammed against the wall, frozen in place. "Stay back!" Castiel barked, and Alex had no choice but to comply.

On the floor at the edge of the devil's trap, Dean's body laid lifelessly, his face a mess of bruises and blood. Alex struggled desperately against the hold Castiel had put on her, but it held. Alastair, who had somehow been freed from the trap, was grinning wickedly, pulling Ruby's knife out of his chest, completely unharmed by Castiel's attack. He chortled eerily, and charged Castiel—Alex could only watch, ineffectively struggling, as the angel and the demon began trading devastating blows, destroying parts of the room as they threw each other around. It was only a matter of maybe ten seconds, but Alastair, gained the upper hand, slammed Cas against one of the walls, holding him up by his neck. Blood ran down the side of the angel's face, and Alex felt the hold on her lessen as Alastair began exorcising Castiel, shouting Latin. Frozen, she watched as Cas's mouth and eyes began to glow in fierce blue light. She tumbled forward, free to move once again. Just there, a couple feet away, she saw a cinder block. Without a second thought, Alex grabbed it, heaved it up with both hands, and lifting it high, she crashed it down on Alastair's head, momentarily stunning the demon and freeing Castiel from the chokehold. Cas tumbled to the ground, seeming to be momentarily stunned.

Alastair, unfazed, strode toward Alex, who was backing up fast, but not fast enough. "Alex, Alex, Alex… I'm getting _reaaaal _tired of your antics, little girl," Alastair said and reached out with incredible speed and strength, yanking her up by the front of her shirt, as if she weighed nothing. He sent her flying through the air toward the far wall with devastating power. She collided with the cement wall, shoulder and head first, a sudden, sick pain exploding there. Befuddled, she felt herself fall over onto her back. The world went sideways, and she heard Castiel shout something, but wasn't sure what. At that point, everything faded out.

* * *

"It's not us. We're not doing it!" Alex heard someone shouting, followed by bizarre sounds of someone screaming in pain. She opened her eyes unevenly, and everything came rushing back as she blinked, her eyes refocusing awkwardly. She was staring at the ceiling, laying on her back, one of her legs tucked under her weirdly.

"I don't _believe_ you," came a familiar voice. _Sam?_ Alex struggled and rolled onto her side, supporting herself on an arm. Her head was pounding, and there was something wet on the side of her head. She touched her fingertips to it, and saw bright crimson there. Woozily, she looked up at the spot where she remembered Cas being. He wasn't there, but she saw that a pair of shoes were right in front of her face.

"Lilith is not behind this," Alastair said, his strangely nasal, lisping voice full of an ominous happiness. "She wouldn't kill seven angels. Oh, she'd kill a hundred, a _thousand_…"

Alex looked up foggily at the owner of the shoes in front of her face, to see Castiel reaching down for her. There was still blood running down the side of his face. He pulled her to her feet, and Alex clutched onto his arm for support, a little off kilter. She stared at him, a little groggy and muddled as she reached her full height. He was so handsome, she thought idly, that it was sad he had to be such an asshole. She lurched as her vision swam and she hung on tighter.

"Go ahead. Send me back, if you can," Alastair taunted Sam, who smiled faintly. "I'm stronger than that now," Sam said darkly. "Now I can_ kill."_ He held his hand out, and his expression became concentrated, aloof. Alastair's face fell and golden light flickered inside him, the outline of his skeleton pulsing through the skin. Adrenaline or fear seemed to overpower Alex's woozy state, and she stared in horror as Sam's outstretched hand slowly clenched into a fist. Beside her, still supporting her, Castiel watched, his expression matching hers. Almost in unison, they clutched each other tighter as they watched in abject horror as the demon began to scream, the pulsing golden light intensifying, then exploding inside of him. The host collapsed, dead. Sam looked pleased, a strange smile on his face that Alex would never, ever forget.

A soft groan from over by the devil's trap drew everyone's attention, and Alex jerked herself out of Castiel's grip, staggering over to Dean's crumpled body. She fell onto all fours and put her head to his chest, listening for his breath. Sam, seemingly back to being himself, was right behind her. Alex drew back. She was startled to see that she'd left a blood stain on Dean's shirt where she'd pressed her ear. She knew she had just cut herself and been given a solid knock on the head... but Dean was barely breathing. "We need to get him to a hospital," she said in urgent alarm.

Castiel came to them, his expression dogged. "Hold on."

* * *

Alex and Sam stayed by Dean's beside, hoping for a sign that Dean would regain consciousness. Castiel had taken them to the ER and then disappeared without even a word. It had been a couple hours, and Dean had been stabilized, but still remained unconscious. The doctor had wanted to treat Alex, too, who had refused. It was only a cut, and possibly a mild concussion. Baby stuff, as far as she was concerned. She'd stopped the bleeding—she was fine. She sat on the edge of Dean's bed, and gently ran her palm down the side of his still face. He looked free of worries, at least. A small mercy. But would he be okay? Sam, who was sitting in a chair next to her, suddenly shot up to his feet. Following his suddenly hostile gaze, Alex stood, too. Castiel stood in the door way, silent. He looked normal again, free of blood, no rips in his coat. Wordlessly, the angel turned and walked away. Exchanging a glance, Sam and Alex took after him, Sam leading the way.

"Sam—" Castiel started as he caught up to him, but Sam only jabbed a finger back toward Dean's room. "Get in there and heal him. Miracle. _Now_."

"I can't," Cas said, eliciting incredulous expressions from the twins.

"What do you mean, you can't?!" Alex demanded, livid. "After all of the times you healed me, that's one _hell_ of a lie, Cas!"

"I mean I _can't_," Castiel repeated firmly, but his expression wasn't the usual confident and stern frown. He looked upset. "I shouldn't even be here right now. I've been warned for the last time about healing."

"But he _needs _it!" Alex almost shouted. Sam was similarly aghast. "You and Uriel _put_ him in there—because you can't keep a simple devil's trap together!"

Cas looked between the two siblings, who had pretty much cornered him. "I don't know what happened. That trap... it shouldn't have broken. I am sorry."

"Oh. You're _sorry_?" Alex asked scornfully. "That makes it_ all_ better, Cas."

"This whole thing was pointless. You understand that?" Sam demanded. "The demons aren't doing the hits. Something else is killing your soldiers, and that's the truth." Fed up, Sam whirled and stalked back to Dean's room, leaving Castiel and Alex alone in the dim hallway.

"Perhaps Alastair was lying," Cas attempted, only to be quickly cut off by another angry retort from Alex. "Yeah and _perhaps_ the sky is _purple_! You're honestly going to stand here and not do anything—after Dean did everything you asked? You_ forced _him to do the most inhuman and horrible thing, for what?!" She was infuriated. "So that you can ignore the _truth_? And leave him to rot in there?!"

"I don't know how that devil's trap could have failed—" Castiel tried again.

"It was sabotaged!" Alex exploded, "Or rigged! Maybe by you, Cas! Huh?" Clear incredulous shock rippled across his features as she looked at him mistrustfully, shaking her head in almost disgust. "I wouldn't put it past you at this point." She shook her head bitterly. "I never should have trusted you, not even a little bit. Not for _one_ second."

"How can you even say that?" he asked. He sounded offended. "I've done nothing but stand at your side and give you assistance and guidance from heaven."

"Yeah,_ thanks_," Alex said, sounding anything but thankful. She looked at his stupid face that she currently hated more than anything; pissed at how clueless he looked. How could he not know how much he had risked by letting Dean torture Alastair? Or how twisted it was to force Dean to do what he did? Alex's rage was collecting inside of her blindingly, and she realized she needed to walk away before it made her do something she'd regret.

She turned to walk away, but he grasped her arm lightly, stopping her. "I'm only here to help," Castiel said, and Alex, infuriated, rounded on him. "Don't _touch_ me!" she snarled, hauling off and punching him squarely across the face... and immediately hunching forward, cradling her fist in pain. "Son of a _bitch_!" She groaned. He was completely unaffected by her physical attack, which pissed her off even more.

"You can't hurt me, Alex," he said in a slightly patronizing tone, as if he felt sorry for her for thinking she could. "You shouldn't exert yourself. You've sustained a head injury."

"This 'head injury' isn't half as bad as the pain you've been in my ass!" She shot back venomously, yanking herself out of his grasp. Maybe she couldn't hurt him physically. But she knew another way. "I _hate_ you, Castiel. _Hate_," she bit out acidly, feeling sick triumph as his expression fell. "Go die," she snarled, and she received exactly what she had been aiming for: his face registered absolute confusion, hurt. But instead of feeling better, Alex felt a very strong pang of regret. She lifted her chin and stared at him, refusing to let him see through her, trying to let him think that's actually how she really felt.

He seemed at a loss. "I… I don't understand. I risked everything out of compassion for you. To give you back your voice. Why would you say this to me?" His earnest question hung in the air, and Alex's couldn't deny the guilt that washed over her as he had said that, nor the knowledge that he was pretty much right. Grudgingly, she looked away, not sure what to do now. "You know what. I appreciate that. I do, Cas." _More than anything, really. _She shook her head, frustrated, regaining some of her fire. "But don't hold that over my head. Don't pull that crap. You can't do one good thing for me then a hundred shitty things and expect me to be in the Castiel fan club."

He said nothing, his eyes falling again. Wishing she could care less if he hurt or not, Alex poked a finger into his chest forcefully, knowing she had to follow through with this if she wanted him to stay gone when he disappeared next. "Just stay the _hell_ away from my family, do you understand?" And without waiting for a reply, she turned and left him standing there.

She did not look back to see if he stayed. She was too busy squeezing her eyes shut and trying to shove the shame away. She saw his face in her mind's eye, hurt and disillusioned at her verbal jabs. He didn't deserve that, not really. Even though it had made her feel good at the moment, the elation she had felt when she slung the words had already faded. As he had pointed out, he _was_ the angel who had given her a voice, who had saved her life and the lives of her brothers a few times now. She tried to push it out of her mind. She just wanted to be done with entire, messy ordeal. In vain, she rubbed her fist in her other hand, wincing. Punching him had been like punching a tree trunk. And the worst part was that he had turned his head with her fist when she hit him—she knew that if he hadn't done that, if he hadn't moved his face when her fist impacted him, she probably would have broken her hand all together. She thought bitterly that she didn't deserve him looking out for her like that, especially not _now_

She grimaced against the shooting pains in her knuckles as she re-entered Dean's room. Sam was sitting again at Dean's bedside, leaned over his knees as he watched their brother intently. Sam glanced up at her. "I've never seen him this bad."

Alex took her seat opposite of Sam, not able to hide her anxiety. Dean looked horrible and sallow, and she'd seen him this bad only once or twice in her whole life. She gritted her teeth together, breathed out heavily, weary and hopeless. "Sam—what are we gonna do?"

Sam's jaw clenched, he thought for a minute. "We're gonna lay low. We're gonna get him better. And then we're going to figure out a way to get these damn angels off our backs for good."

Alex shook her head hollowly. It would all be easier said than done. For a minute, they watched Dean silently, the _beep, beep, beep_ of the heart rate monitor punctuating the silence.

A little nervously, Alex cleared her throat. She didn't want to have to ask what she was about to. "Listen, Sam. How were you able to kill Alastair like that?" She paused. "You were… full on telepathic." She was struggling not to sound repulsed or afraid. "Not even Ruby's knife did anything to him."

Sam was somber, his gaze stony. "Uh, yeah, I dunno. My abilities are just stronger."

Alex felt like she wasn't getting the full story, but was afraid to set Sam off. "I mean, do they get stronger every time you use them?" she asked, trying to pry something more out of him.

"Something like that," Sam said, and sighed, looking away uncomfortably. "Sorry. I don't like to talk about it. I, you know, don't understand them myself."

Alex nodded, and let it go. "It's okay Sam. It's fine." But it wasn't fine. She looked at him from underneath her lashes across the bed. Even though he was within arms reach, he could have been a hundred miles away. That's how close she felt to him right now. Troubled, she remembered how he had barely been able to exorcise Samhain a couple months ago. So how was it that he so easily kill one of the most powerful demons in existence… _with only his mind?_ Alex looked at Dean, wishing she knew what to do.

* * *

Castiel found Uriel sitting on a bench, in the middle of a snowy glen. His brother had his eyes closed. "There you are," Uriel said, as if he'd been expecting him, and opened his eyes. "Castiel, I received revelation from our superiors. Our brothers and sisters are dying and they… they want us to stop hunting the demon responsible."

Castiel sat carefully beside Uriel, remaining silent, distracted. He couldn't stop remembering Alex's angry words and the way she'd attacked him like he was the enemy. Why didn't she understand he was here to protect and care for her? Why did she look at him so mistrustfully and like he was a stranger? Didn't she realize he was the one in the shadows and the still moments who made sure she would always be safe? Before this vessel, he hadn't dared to imagine that they would ever speak to each other, but if he had... he never would have imagined she could ever be so angry with him. Make him... hurt so much. "I hate you, Castiel. _Hate_." How was it possible for words to sting him inside? He felt dejected and defeated, wishing he could change this somehow. How could he undo this damage?

Uriel sighed. "Something is _wrong_ up there. I mean, can you feel it?" Uriel looked heavenward.

Castiel glanced Uriel's way, torn out of his thoughts. He didn't want to address his growing doubt in the purity of heaven's orders. "The murders," he said, distracted. "Maybe they aren't demonic. Sam Winchester said the demons had nothing to do with it."

"If not the demons, what could it be?" Uriel asked, sounding shocked at the idea.

"The will of heaven," Castiel theorized. "We are failing, Uriel. We are losing the war. Perhaps the garrison is being punished."

The suggestion seemed to bother Uriel. "You think our father would—"

"I think maybe our father isn't giving the orders anymore," Castiel said, emboldened. "Maybe there is something wrong."

Uriel's brow furrowed. "Yes. I believe there is."

Castiel looked Uriel's way again. He was preparing to broach an uncomfortable subject. "Uriel. I asked around. No one else in heaven received revelation about the end of Alex Winchester's guardianship."

Uriel turned slowly to look at Castiel. "Well _I_ did," he said.

"Did you?" Castiel challenged quietly.

Uriel's eyes narrowed. "What are you accusing me of?" he asked in a soft, dangerous tone.

Castiel returned Uriel's gaze unblinkingly, under the knowledge that there would be no going back from what he was about to say. As of late, Castiel had been under the influence of outsiders—namely Alex and Dean Winchester. In the privacy of his own mind, he wondered if _they _were the reason he had begun to suspect Uriel of lies and deceit. But no matter who or what had caused him to think these things, he thought them all the same. Castiel gathered his courage to reply to his brother. "Of manipulating the situation to your advantage."

Uriel scoffed, and shook his head. "Our superiors are right. You have begun to lose your mind." And without another word, Uriel disappeared, leaving Castiel even more lost than before.

Castiel heaved a tired sounding sigh and stood. This was not supposed to happen. He was not supposed to be obliged to mistrust and second-guess his brethren. And still, he did. The growing sense of unease, of _wrongness_, was too strong to deny. Absently, he wondered about Dean. His injuries were bad, but he would survive. Still, seeing him beaten and bruised and unresponsive had sparked a strange feeling in Castiel's spirit. He then thought of Alex again. He could still see her hazel eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed red, as she had hit him. He had felt nothing upon the impact of her fist. Again he remembered hearing her shout _'I hate you_!' He didn't understand how such a simple declaration could have made him feel so bad or why it still bothered him so deeply. All Castiel knew is that he didn't want her to hate him. He didn't want Dean to hate him. He didn't understand any of it.

* * *

Alex gave the corner vending machine a swift kick, cursing it under her breath. She grabbed it with both hands and shook, trying to get the freaking thing to dispense the pack of M&Ms. "Come—on—" she grunted, rattling it with violent, exasperated force. Finally, the little packet tumbled loose, and she was able to fish it out of the machine. She clenched the little bag of candy tightly… it had proven to be very coy. She set off down the quiet, dark hallway of the hospital, back to Dean's room, where her brother, awake and on the mend, was anxiously awaiting the delivery of his snack.

"Well, thanks to your little midnight craving—" she started as she opened the door, but then fell silent at the sight of _him_. Castiel stood up as she entered the dark room. He'd been seated beside Dean, in _her_ seat. "The hell are _you _doing here?" Alex asked. And then she saw Dean's face in the dim moonlight that came in through the window. He was stricken, his cheeks looked tear stained. "Dean. What's wrong?" She asked in sudden alarm, then looked at Castiel accusingly, coming to Dean's side protectively. "I told you to stay away! What did you do to him?"

A slab of moonlight fell diagonally across the angel's face, and she could see him looking at her with a strange expression. Discomfort. "I answered his questions. I told him the truth which I uncovered."

"Which better be pretty damn important," Alex said, stepping closer to him and waiting for him to explain.

Castiel's gaze faltered. "I discovered that Uriel was the one who was killing angels. He wanted to raise Lucifer. He said other angels do, too." He paused, looking into her eyes. "He's dead."

Not what Alex had expected to hear—none of it. Castiel looked resigned and burdened, and Alex could find no retort or jab to aim at him. She simply looked at him, and realized how exhausted he looked. How overwhelmed. "There is a war in Heaven, and I must fight for righteousness," Castiel said. "You and Dean and Anna were right." He sounded so, so, tired. Alex just looked at him in stunned silence, not really sure what to say. She just felt incredibly guilty and incredibly cruel. She looked away.

Castiel looked at Dean, and his frown deepened. "I'll leave now." But before he did, he looked at Alex once more, his expression unreadable. "I'm sorry, Alex." And he was gone, before she could ask what for. She stared at the spot he'd been in a second ago, confused. "_Dammit_," she muttered, unable to put her conflicting frustrations into coherent thoughts or words. Why did he always leave her in a jumble of confusion? She didn't roll like that. In this life, she made up her mind about things and stuck by her decisions. But with Cas, she kept going back and forth. She couldn't make up her mind about him, and it was infuriating.

A soft sniff tore her out of her thoughts and she turned her attention to Dean, who was struggling to control his face. He was clearly upset. "What is it?" Alex asked in dismay, sitting down on the bed and gently brushing his wet cheeks with the backs of her fingers. She always got extremely upset herself when Dean was upset, but his _tears_—those terrified her.

He caught her hands in his to stop her, and held them firmly, his eyes squeezed closed. "Cas said that I was the one who started the apocalypse." His eyes opened, his face contorted in guilt and pain. "Me. In Hell, _I _broke the first seal. I started it."

"What?" Alex whispered. She grasped at straws for the right words to say to comfort her miserable brother. "Well, you'll be the one to end it. You and me. And Sammy. We'll beat this. Dean... _hey_. Hey."

What little composure remained was fast crumbling, and Dean shook his head. His voice cracked with raw emotion—with a certain note of hopelessness. "I'm not _strong_ enough, Al. I've carried too much for too long, and I can't do it. I just can't. I don't have the strength anymore." He shook from a sob that wracked his entire body, and Alex didn't know what else to do. She half crawled into the bed, embracing him tightly, even though she herself was beginning to feel as though she were falling apart, too. "You don't have to do it alone, Dean. I'm here."

He just wept, and she clutched him in total terror, glad he couldn't see her face right now. When Dean, her rock, fell apart, she didn't know how to be okay.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ What's this?! Two chapter updates in one week!? That's right. I had written most of this chapter already, so I figured, why not let the fans have what they want?! lol :) This was a fun one to write, and I am really liking getting into more complexity where Alex and Cas are concerned. Last chapter did not have enough Calex, am I right? Leave me a comment and let me know what you thought… xoxo_


	14. It's a Terrible Life

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 14 / It's a Terrible Life

_"You took away my world._"  
- Fastball_  
_

* * *

"I see your giant snickers bar and raise you a cup of room temperature hospital jello," Dean said, plunking the aforementioned item down on his bedside tray.

"Dangerous stakes, Winchester. Are you sure?" Alex asked, feigning deadly seriousness as she stared at him over her cards.

"Oh yeah," he replied in a low voice, matching her theatrics with a challenging eyebrow shrug. "I'm sure. Hit me."

She laid down her hand with a triumphant smirk and he grimaced as she announced, "Full house."

"Dammit," Dean sighed, throwing down his hand in disappointment. "Three of a kind. You win this round, Pipsqueak."

"Ah... victory," Alex said with a note of comic uncertainty. She took the cup of Jello and squinted at the wiggly red substance as Dean sighed restlessly and settled back against the pillows of his bed, half-sitting. "I am so damn ready to get outta here," he said, sounding mostly exasperated, but a little forlorn, too.

Alex glanced at him sympathetically. It had been about a week and a half that he'd been here at the hospital. "Well, the doc said if all the tests came back normal today we can leave tomorrow," she reminded him. He rolled his eyes. "One more day. We got this," she said, chuckling a little as she picked up the playing cards and began to shuffle them. "Another game?"

Dean shook his head. "Nah, I'm poker-ed out."

Alex stopped shuffling for a second. "Okay, who are you and what did you do with Dean?" She joked, receiving a glancing smile from her brother. Honestly, she was tired of poker too. There had been _lots_ of poker, blackjack, and bad daytime TV the past week or so. She'd been there almost every day and night—bringing in food from fast food places, fussing over him, and just keeping him company. She would leave when visiting hours were over, then sneak back in at night, sleeping in the chair. After his breakdown the first night there, Alex had a deep instinct that he shouldn't be alone; that he needed her there, even if it was just her physical presence. That, and she didn't want to be alone, either.

They hadn't brought up any of it again—not the apocalypse crap, not Alastair, not Castiel, not Dean's feelings. She knew, sooner or later, she'd have to tell him what really happened to Alastair. He wasn't going to like it. As if reading her mind, Dean cleared his throat. "So, heard from Sammy today?"

Alex pursed her lips to the side, her good mood fading. She stuck the shuffled cards back in their box roughly. "Called earlier and said he's on his way back."

She felt sour recalling how their brother had left almost a week ago on a whim. Bobby had come to visit Dean, mentioned he was headed to Rapid City next to take care of a ghost, and Sam had all but jumped at the opportunity. In Alex's eyes, leaving when Dean needed him most.

"Why didn't you go with him, again?" Dean asked. "I'm sure they could have used your help. And at least you wouldn't be stuck here."

"Those two didn't need help with one little vengeful spirit," Alex said, trying to sound lighter than she felt. She sounded false even to herself. "And I wasn't going to leave you to be bored alone."

Dean just tilted his head to the side, scrutinizing her. "Okay, Al. What aren't you telling me?"

Dammit. He'd been off the pain killers for a couple days now and was getting his clarity back. She huffed and looked down, found out—she guessed it was time to come clean. She shrugged. "Sam got mad at me because I wouldn't go. I wasn't gonna leave you, Dean. Not now. Not after…" she trailed off, thinking better of actually bringing it up. "And then we… had another fight, he said I was being selfish, that you're my favorite, he couldn't be around me… blah, blah, blah, same old, same old," she said.

Dean gave her a disappointed look. "Fighting? Again? Why didn't you tell me that like six days ago when it happened?"

Alex shrugged again, guiltily. "I didn't want to upset you while you were still recovering."

"Oh come on, I'm _fine_," he said, glaring at the insinuation that he was too weak to handle some bad news.

"Internal bleeding and severe head trauma aren't fine," Alex retorted, receiving a dirty look. She glanced at him, realizing now was the time. She swallowed apprehensively. "But, since you are mostly recovered… there _is_ something else I need to tell you."

Dean got a suspicious look on his face at the tone of her voice, and Alex let out a big breath, wishing she could save Dean the oncoming confusion and pain. "So, Ruby's knife? It didn't work on Alastair. Didn't affect him at all."

Dean was puzzled, and Alex could see the wheels of his mind turning. He knew Alastair was dead, but they hadn't exactly told him the details. "Then how…" he trailed off, and then his expression went cold in understanding. "No. Not Sam...?" he asked softly.

"Yeah," Alex confirmed, her voice full of the sadness she felt.

"But—but he could barely _exorcise_ Samhain a couple months ago," Dean protested, still confused.

"I know," Alex said, remembering the scene with distaste. "I don't know how he did it. All I know is I saw him do it. He did it so easily, Dean. Like it was a walk in the freaking park. Like he's been… practicing, or… I dunno." She threw her hands up in frustration.

"So, there's something he is not telling us," Dean surmised grimly.

"I get the feeling there's a lot of things he's not telling us," Alex replied softly. There was a sad, heavy silence, and Dean, suddenly looking tired and haggard, rubbed his forehead. "You shouldn't have let him go by himself up there with Bobby. Dammit, Alex. He could have finished with the job days ago for all we know, and be with Ruby, or... who knows?" His sadness was escalating into anger. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Look at the heart rate monitor. Your blood pressure just went up like twenty points," she said, being totally reasonable, but still getting a look of annoyance from her brother. "I did call Bobby, after Sam called today. To make sure Sam was telling the truth. To make sure he'd actually been with Bobby the whole time," Alex said, getting Dean's attention. "Bobby confirmed."

"Sad that we're at a place where we have to do that crap," Dean commented emptily, then glanced around the room unhappily. "When we get out of here… I'm halfway tempted to go to Timbuktu. Where Ruby can't get to Sam, where the damn angels can't get us. Surround us with hex bags, good beer... watch the world go to shit and stop worrying about it being our fault."

"Dean..." Alex protested, not sure where that had come from, but Dean was already continuing. "I'm tired of it," he said, growing quiet. "All of it. I just want..." he trailed off, his expression strange and lost. "I don't know what I want." He looked down into his lap, and Alex could see how burdened he felt. He shook his head. "Just not this."

* * *

**Three Weeks Later**

Alex Williams woke up to her cell phone alarm ringing as it usually did at six o'clock in the morning. She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and pushed off into another day of her life. She spent the first few minutes of her morning meditating and practicing Yoga, as she did every day. After showering and drying her hair, she paged through her closet, picking a pencil skirt, cherry red flats, and gray cardigan over a sheer white blouse. She applied her makeup—foundation, mascara, eye liner, gloss—then combed serum into her hair and straight ironed it, sweeping it into a low pony tail, completing the look with a thin headband. She looked herself over in the mirror—she looked polished and professional, as usual. Still, something looked off and she couldn't figure out what it was. She felt a faint sense of frustration and distaste, but couldn't figure out why. Chalking it up to fatigue, she went to the kitchenette of her apartment and made a cup of tea, had whole grain toast and an organic banana, did a little research for her paper that was due on Thursday, and then it was time to leave for work.

The office was only a few blocks from her apartment, so she walked, keeping a brisk pace in the early morning chill. She looked up at the towering structure of Sandover Bridge and Iron as she arrived. It was hard to believe she worked here now. She'd been hired three weeks ago, and before that had worked at a consulting firm, where work had been…. well, it was a blur now. She could barely remember what she did there, and frowned. She made a mental note that she needed to start taking a multivitamin. A person her age shouldn't have so many problems with remembering things that happened three weeks ago, and it seemed like she was having problems remembering things a lot lately.

She rode the elevator up with a bunch of other businesspeople, including one guy who was a little taller than her. He was dressed nicely, with short brown hair and handsome features. For some reason, she instantly decided he was a douche bag. He smiled politely at her, and she returned it, even while mentally, she was telling him to screw off, and that his face was stupid.

She hopped off on her floor—technical support, and entered the reception area. Her domain. She set her things down on her desk and took her seat, switching on her computer and getting her earpiece out of the drawer. Employees were filing in now, dressed in the pale yellow polo uniform shirts. She was glad she got to wear what she wanted—fashion was basically her life.

The computer chimed, finished turning on, and she smiled at the desktop picture of fluffy white kittens playing with each other. She loved cats. She looked at the picture a little longer, her smile fading, a weird sensation in the pit of her stomach. She loved cats... didn't she? Didn't she love cats?

"Good morning, Alex!" Came a familiar voice, and Alex looked up.

"Oh, hi Sam!" Alex greeted, smiling at the latest arrival. Sam Wesson, who had been hired at the same time as her. They'd hit it off in the two day training and had discovered they both loved the Red Hot Chili Peppers, hiking, and karaoke.

"How good was _24_ last night?" Sam asked, and Alex's eyes went wide.

"_So_ good, right?! Oh my God." Alex grinned at him. "Jack Bauer is the man."

Sam chuckled, and took one of the M&Ms she kept in a bowl. "See you at lunch?" He asked. Alex was putting on her earpiece and flashing him a smile. "I'll be there."

With another smile, Sam left, heading back to his cubicle. She watched him go and wondered again why she wasn't attracted to him. He was tall, built, handsome, and really nice. They got along famously, like they'd always known each other. But he just didn't do anything for her. Weirdly enough, she was more interested in Miller, the weird boss, than Sam. Speaking of him, in he walked, dressed in his normal business suit. Over it, he wore a tan trench coat. Come to think of it, she'd never seen him out of it.

"Good morning Mr. Collins!" She greeted him cheerily, and he acknowledged her with a glance. He was an odd guy, really. He always had a look on his face like he was slightly pissed off about something. He arrived to work in the mornings and shut himself in his office all day, only coming out to leave. And he always watched her hawkishly, intently. Sometimes she felt like a tiny mouse under his stare. But she kind of liked that for some reason.

"Good morning," he replied in his deep voice, looking at her in that peevish way of his, and without further ado, went into his office. Alex watched until the door was shut. So weird. She had no clue why she found him so intriguing. Or so attractive. Maybe because he was so mysterious. He never said more than a few words at a time, and the five o'clock shadow, the scowl, the intense stares… something about them was so—

The phone rang, rattling her out of her daydreams, and she glanced at the time on her computer screen. Eight o'clock already. And so the day began. "Good morning, Sandover Bridge and Iron, how may I assist you today?"

* * *

6:00am. Wake up, Yoga, shower, dress, breakfast, walk to work. Arrive, say hi to Sam, say hi to Mr. Collins. Answer phones, redirect calls. Print memos, order supplies, refill printer ink. Clean break room refrigerator. Answer more calls. And before Alex knew it, another day was drawing to a close.

It was time to go, but Alex planned on staying a little late. Mr. Collins came out of his office and stopped at her desk, looking at her through narrowed eyes. "You're still here."

She smiled up at him, hoping maybe he would smile back. "I just need to finish up a couple things... I won't be long."

His expression didn't waver in the slightest. "All right. See you tomorrow."

He turned and left, leaving her slightly disappointed. Sighing, she opened up her purse and took out her jump drive where her paper draft would be. She was taking night classes at one of the local colleges, and this paper was due in a few hours. She didn't have the time to go home and then to campus, and would rather work here than in the creepy college library. She only had about two hours to get it done, so she set to work, hoping she wouldn't get in trouble for using company property for personal use. It was after hours, she figured, so it couldn't hurt. She noticed about twenty minutes later, when the sun set, that behind her, there was faint blue light coming from one cubicle. She wasn't the only one staying late.

She worked for about an hour more, polishing up the paper and hoping she never had to read or analyze Heart of Darkness ever again. It was a heavy read and she couldn't quite honestly see why the professor thought it was so life-changing. But, in her pursuit of a degree in English, she supposed she would have to write a lot of papers on books she didn't like. She paused for a moment, wondering how she had let herself wait until her mid-twenties to go to college. Why hadn't she started at eighteen? She couldn't recall a specific reason.

A strange sound interrupted her thoughts. Behind her, somewhere in the cubicles or maybe the break room, she heard a very strange sound, popping, like a muffled explosion, and then a man's scream. She stood in alarm, her heart beginning to hammer. "Hello?" she called, and no one answered. She entered the quiet darkness of the cubicles, and saw that halfway down the room, the light in the break room was on. She cautiously approached the slab of light on the dark carpeted floor, frowning as she got closer, the smell of something like burned meat hitting her nostrils.

"Hello?" she called again, and peeked into the break room... only to see a man, clearly dead, hanging out of the microwave, head-first... blood and chunks of flesh spattered inside the microwave and on parts of the floor and ceiling. Alex tilted her head to the side, grimacing in disgust. "Ugh." Then she frowned at herself, not sure how she could react so weakly to such a horrific sight. She needed to call the police—but as she stood there, she felt the temperature of the room drop, and as she breathed out, her breath made a little puff of vapor. And in the shiny glass of the coffeepot, she thought she saw a movement behind her, a hazy reflection of an old man. She whirled, but no one was there.

A little disconcerted, she hugged her arms to herself and looked around, beginning to feel legitimately spooked. "Okay, definitely time to call the police."

* * *

Sam and Alex watched as the coroner team wheeled the body out. People from other floors were gathered in reception, watching in horrified curiosity. Beside Alex, Sam was shaking his head. "He _really_ stuck his head in a _microwave_?" he was flabbergasted.

"Yes, just like I told you. It was sick," Alex said, then shook her head sadly. "He was two weeks from retiring. I was helping to plan a little office party for him. He was excited about it... I don't get why he did this."

"Yeah it's all… very bizarre." Sam sounded as suspicious as she felt. Something about it wasn't normal, wasn't natural. Sam looked at her, concerned. "Sorry you had to see it all, Alex."

"Ah. It wasn't so bad," Alex said, drawing a surprised look from her coworker. "_Wasn't so bad_?" he repeated.

"Well I mean, it was horrible," she backpedaled, not wanting Sam to think she was a freak. "But I dunno, I'm fine. Not that shaken up." She frowned. "Maybe I should be worried that I feel fine." She thought about telling him about the chill in the room, the reflection she thought she saw, but wasn't sure if that would make her sound crazy or not.

"Hey!" Came a loud voice. It was the assistant floor manager, Dave. "Everyone needs to quit standing around and gawking, and get to your cubicles. Yes, it's sad, but we have work to do, people." The employees all dissipated, and Alex gave Sam a wan smile. "See you at lunch?" He asked halfheartedly.

"I'll be there," she confirmed, and headed up towards reception. She ran into a rushed looking Ian—he was Sam's desk neighbor and today she almost didn't recognize him. He was actually in company dress policy, clean shaven, and hair neatly combed. Another bizarre thing to add to the growing list. "Morning, Ian," she greeted, looking at him curiously.

"I don't have time to _talk_, I need to get to _work_," he said replied, brushing past her and making a beeline for his cubicle. Alex frowned, unable to shake the growing feeling that something was_ off_.

* * *

"My pleasure ma'm. Thank you for calling Sandover. Goodbye." Alex disconnected the phone call and yawned restlessly. It was around lunch time and Ian had gone up to HR about an hour ago. When he didn't come back, Sam went to go see what happened. She was feeling the mid day lull coming on, and was already thinking about how much she couldn't wait to get home and watch the Oprah show that would be waiting on her DVR. Just then, Sam came back in. From his expression, Alex could tell something was wrong, and stood up. "What happened? Where's Ian?"

Sam's face was blank. "Ian stabbed himself in the neck with a pencil in the HR bathroom."

Alex blinked. "_What_?"

"Yeah."

"What the hell?" Alex asked, then covered her mouth with her hand in embarrassment. "Sorry. I don't usually swear."

"I don't know," Sam said, ignoring her apology. "He was acting all weird this morning, like all... anal-retentive and worried about work. That's not like him."

"Yeah, he seemed off this morning." Alex dropped her voice, leaned in. "Do you think... something is going on? I mean, two extremely weird suicides in two days?"

"I'm not sure," Sam said, but from his troubled, thoughtful expression, she thought that was exactly what he was thinking.

* * *

Wake up, meditate, shower, dress, breakfast, walk to work. Arrive, say hi to Sam, say hi to Mr. Collins.

Alex found herself staring blankly at her computer for most of the day, taking calls and doing her tasks in a disconnected kind of way. She felt strange, and couldn't pinpoint why. Inside, she was beginning to fear that maybe she was going crazy, that she was seeing things or imagining things. And last night, she had dreamed about a vintage black car, a man in a puffy vest and flannel, and flickering motel signs. She wasn't sure why the dream had stuck with her, but it was eating away at her. In an attempt to distract herself, she smoothed her flowy blouse, readjusting the line where she had tucked it into the waist of her skirt. She stared down at her feet, which were shoved into black heels, and then looked at her manicured fingernails. Somehow, the sight of both seemed wrong. Maybe it was time to change her style.

"Alex!" Sam had appeared out of nowhere, and was intently leaning over her desk. "I just got a call from Dean Smith."

"Who's that?" Alex asked, frowning at his sudden arrival and urgent tone.

"A big time guy who works upstairs in HR. He wants to see us."

Surprised, Alex stood up. "Are we in trouble? Why both of us?" Alex asked, not understanding.

Sam lowered his voice, becoming furtive. "I think it has something to do with... with the deaths. He told me to 'bring the girl who saw the other guy's corpse.'"

At that, Alex felt a twinge of intrigue, and her sense of adventure sparking alive inside her. She felt herself smiling. "Okay. Well, what are we waiting for?"

In hushed excitement, the two of them ducked out of the office and onto the elevator up to the seventh floor, where they found Dean Smith's office. After Sam knocked and Dean called them in, Sam led the way into a spacious modern office. With a gray color palette and black and white photographs of famous cityscapes lining the wall, the office reeked of position and upper management. Standing behind the desk was the guy from the elevator—the yuppie douche bag. Alex felt a little disappointment.

"Come on in," he said, both hands on the back of his chair. "Shut the door."

Dean paused a beat, and looked at Sam through narrowed eyes. "So wanna tell me who the hell you are?"

Sam looked a little surprised by the direct question, and Alex answered with uncharacteristic boldness when he said nothing. "This is Sam Wesson. I'm Alex Williams. And... you called us here. Shouldn't you know who we are?" She fixed him with an expectant look.

"I've seen you in the elevator before," Dean said flippantly, looking at her for the first time. "So you're the one who saw... the body?"

"Yup. And you're the one who saw... Ian die."

"Yup," he confirmed uncomfortably, and then cleared his throat. "Among other things. I, uh... so you two started working here three weeks ago, huh?"

Sam and Alex both nodded, not sure where their superior was going with this. "Yeah, me too," he said, walking over to one of his shelves. He grabbed a water bottle full of a dirty-looking liquid and unscrewed the cap. "It's, uh, the Master Cleanse. You tried it? Phenomenal. Detoxes you like nobody's business." He took a swig and Alex scoffed. "It looks disgusting."

"Oh, it is," he said, grinning.

Sam, however, wasn't interested in their trivialities. He had fixed Dean with an intent gaze, and stepped a little closer. "When you were in that bathroom with Ian... did you see something?"

Dean looked caught, his expression chilling in fear, then softening as he tried to laugh it off. "I don't know. I don't know what I saw. I was tripping."

Sam's frown deepened. "What did you see? You saw something... I can tell."

Dean looked uncomfortable and hesitant, and Alex's mouth hung open slightly. Somehow, she knew what he had seen. "You saw a _ghost _didn't you?"

At her direct question, Dean's expression showed stunned confirmation. Alex was nodding, suddenly excited, looking between Sam and Dean both, glad she could finally tell someone about what she saw. "I think I saw one too. When I found Paul—" her excitement faded, as she remembered the sad reality of Paul's demise. "When I found Paul, the room got cold, like, freezing cold. And I saw this blurry reflection in the coffee pot..." she had both of the guys' rapt attention. "I turned around... and no one was there." She waited to see if they would think she was crazy. "It was a ghost, wasn't it?" she asked, looking at Sam, and then Dean, hoping.

"Was it... an old white guy? Gray hair, wrinkly face?" Dean asked slowly, sounding like he was both dreading and eagerly awaiting her answer.

"Yeah!" Alex breathed, in disbelief that she wasn't crazy, and someone else had seen the same image.

"Guys—what if these suicides aren't actually suicides?" Sam asked breathlessly, emphatically. "I mean, what if they're something... not natural?"

"Something... paranormal? Like... _ghost murders_?" Alex asked, her voice lowering to a whisper at the last two words.

Dean was scoffing, trying to be reasonable. "Come on guys... that sounds kind of crazy… I mean, first thing first: ghosts are real? And not only that, but they're responsible for all the dead bodies around here?"

He sat down at his desk, and Sam and Alex grabbed seats across from him. "I know it sounds crazy," Sam said earnestly. "But guys… that has to be it!"

"What makes you so sure?" Dean asked, obviously not as on board with the idea as Sam was.

Sam took a minute, looking for an answer. "Instinct," he finally replied, and Alex felt a chill run up her spine. That was exactly what she had been thinking, too.

Dean had a look on his face like reluctant agreement. "Yeah. I've, uh, got the same instinct." They both looked at her. "You do too, don't you Alex?" Sam asked, even though he sounded like he already knew her answer was yes.

"Yeah, I mean, it's crazy... but I don't see what else it could be," Alex said, meaning every word.

There was a short, pensive silence. "Dean, you know those dreams I was telling you about?" Sam asked. "I was dreaming about ghosts."

"Wait, what dreams?" Alex asked, puzzled, thinking of her strange dream last night.

"I dreamed that I fought ghosts, like, that it was my entire life," Sam explained.

"And that I was helping him do it," Dean added, sounding a little unenthused.

Sam got a little quiet, hesitant. "You weren't the only one, Dean… Alex, you were in the dreams too," Alex and Dean exchanged glances as Sam continued. "And then it turns out that there's a real ghost, and the three of us here, now..." he trailed off. "Coincidence?"

"So, what, your dreams are visions?" Dean asked, a little sarcastically. "You some kind of psychic?"

"No!" Sam exclaimed quickly. "I mean, that would be nuts."

"Why would that be nuts?" Alex cut in, amused. "Did you guys forget the subject matter which we've been discussing? Ghost murders?"

Dean chuckled a little, as Sam continued. "I'm just saying something weird is definitely going on around here, right? So I've been digging around a little." Sam pulled some papers out of his bag, and handed half of them over to Dean, half to Alex.

"I think I found a connection between the two guys."

"You broke into their email accounts?" Dean asked, frowning, but before Sam could backpedal, Alex grinned at him over the print outs. "Sam... that is so against company protocol… but… oh my God... _so_ very _cool_!"

Sam looked at Dean nervously, but Dean was busy trying to hide an impressed smile. He shrugged. "It is pretty badass, if I say so myself."

"Uh, thanks," Sam said meekly, and cleared his throat. "Yeah. Okay. So it turns out Ian and Paul both got this same email telling them to report to HR, room fourteen forty-four."

"But HR's here on seven," Alex said, and they all shared a significant glance. "This email has something to do with the murders," Alex surmised, getting more excited by the second. "Guys. We have _got_ to check this out."

"Like right now?" Sam asked hesitantly.

"No. No, it's getting late," Dean said, although he didn't sound convinced.

Alex looked between the two of them. "_Guys_."

"I'm _dying _to check this out right now," Sam said, and Dean's expression showed that he was too. "Right?" Dean asked, already getting to his feet.

The three of them hopped on the elevator up to the fourteenth floor, and searched down the room in question. "Fourteen thirty-eight, we're getting close," Sam said as they rounded a corner. And suddenly, they heard a man scream. Breaking into a run, they found the door to fourteen forty-four was locked. Sam wiggled the door handle, then without a word, drew back and kicked the door in, leaving Dean and Alex to stare in momentary awe, saying "whoa!" at the same time. Sam led the way, and they ran into the dark room, which looked like a computer storage unit. All the screens were on, gray static playing. The room was ice cold.

"Look!" Alex said, pointing to a man laying on the floor, a heavy shelf on top of him. Dean and Sam rushed to him and began to lift the shelf off. And then, flickering into existence behind Dean, the ghost appeared—the old man from the reflection. "Dean! Look out!" Alex shouted, her eyes wide as she saw the old man fling Dean against a wall and shove Sam over. She felt herself fly backwards without even being touched, and she collided with a pile of old computers. She rolled over easily as if by instinct, crouched on the ground, and stared as the old man reached for the tech support employee, his hand sparking with blue lightning.

She sprang up, rushing across the distance that separated her from the man who was about to be zapped, and with a strength she didn't know she had, she lifted the heavy metal shelf off the man—but not fast enough. The ghost's finger was a fraction of an inch from the man, who was screaming in horror. And then, just in the nick of time, Dean swung a wrench at the old man, who dissipated like a cloud of smoke. All the screens switched off, and the room went silent. The three of them stared at each other, agape. "How the hell did you lift that?" Dean asked Alex, incredulous.

"I guess I'm stronger than I thought?" Alex said, not entirely sure herself. "But never mind that, how did you know how to do that wrench thing?"

Dean shook his head, as puzzled as they were. "I have no idea."

* * *

About twenty minutes later, the three of them, were settling into Dean's apartment, still reeling from their ghost encounter. "Holy crap, dude," Dean said, pacing back and forth and guzzling his master cleanse liquid.

"Yeah. I could use a beer," Sam said, letting out a heavy breath.

"Oh, sorry, man. I'm on the Cleanse," Dean said, heading for his refrigerator. "I got rid of all the carbs in the house."

"You suck," Alex said, wishing she could get her hands on a Killian's Red or a Newcastle.

"So, how the hell did you know that ghosts are scared of wrenches?" Sam asked as Dean grabbed water bottles out of his refrigerator.

"Crazy, right?" Dean asked, handing a water bottle to Alex, and then Sam. "And nice job kicking that door too. That was very Jet Li. What are you, like a black belt or something?" He looked at Alex, his eyebrows raised."And you, Hulk Hogan. That shelf had to weigh more than a hundred pounds."

"Yeah, I had no idea my own strength," Alex said honestly, and flexed her arm muscle curiously, poking the defined bicep with her pointer finger, in a shocked kind of awe. "Whoa. They _are_ kind of big. I've never noticed before. Do I work out? I don't think I work out…" she trailed off, frowning.

Sam was in deep thought. "It's like...we've done this before."

"What do you mean, before?" Dean questioned.

"Like in a previous life?" Alex asked skeptically. "I don't know how I feel about reincarnation..."

"No," Sam said, shaking his head. "I—I just can't shake this feeling like I—like I don't belong here. You know? Like I should do something more than sit in a cubicle."

Dean chuckled. "I think most people who work in a cubicle feel that same way."

Alex, however, looked at Sam. "I think I know what you mean. I wake up in the morning and just… something's off. But I'm not sure. I feel really foggy sometimes, like I don't even like what I think I like." It sounded insanely stupid when she said it out loud, and she shrugged. "Not sure how to explain it, really."

"I know, right?" Sam seemed to agree with her. "I mean, I don't like my job. I don't like this town. I don't like my clothes. I don't like my own last name." Alex was nodding, hanging onto every word, feeling like he was talking for her. "I don't know how else to explain it, except that... it feels like I should be doing something else. There's just something in my blood. Like I was destined for something different. What about you? You ever feel that way?"

"You're starting to sound kind of Star Wars, there, Yoda," Alex joked. He'd lost her at the destiny stuff.

"I don't believe in destiny," Dean said, earning a look of respect from Alex. "I do believe in dealing with what's right in front of us, though."

"All right, so, what do we do now?" Sam asked, and Dean grinned. "We do what I do best, Sammy. Research."

"Okay. Wait." Sam looked at Dean oddly. "Did you just call me Sammy?"

"Uh, did I?" Dean asked.

"I think you did. Yeah. Don't."

"Sorry," Dean said, and Alex chuckled. "Get a room, guys."

"Shut up," the two men said in unison.

* * *

"Here's the beers, Sam," Alex said, plopping down a six pack of Newcastle on the table. Both Dean and Sam had a laptop in front of them. Sam cracked open a beer. "You are the best, Alex. Thanks for getting these."

She sat down between them, grabbing herself a beer. "What have you guys found?"

Dean was eyeing the beer a little wistfully from the corner of his eye. "Sure you don't want one?" Alex asked as she opened hers. "I'm on the cleanse," he replied dutifully, tearing his eyes away from the bottle in her hand. "Anyway, I just found the best site ever. Real, actual ghost hunters."

Sam and Alex leaned their heads over, peering at Dean's screen. "These guys are genius," Dean said, a certain note of admiring in his voice. "Check it out."

An instructional video began playing, two guys who called themselves Ghostfacers. They watched the video, hovering close to the screen in rapt attention. When it was over, they sat back in unison, silently absorbing everything they had just heard. "Okay," Sam said slowly, "so we just need to research this ghost, figure out who he is, and then find his remains... or the haunted item."

"Sounds good," Dean said. Alex, however, was just sitting there, a huge grin on her face. "These guys were _so_ cool," she breathed, glancing at Sam, then Dean. "This makes me wish I could be a ghost hunter. Wow."

"You seem easily impressed, kid," Dean said, giving her a superior smile like she were dumb. She ignored the comment and just looked at him sidelong. "Have a beer already, will you?"

His jaw clenched. "The cleanse," he said, this time sounding blatantly depressed.

She smiled to herself.

* * *

Wake up, meditate, shower, dress, breakfast, walk to work... Alex arrived at work like normal, wearing a short floral dress (Friday, casual day), cardigan, and heels. Behind her, she heard the low hum of the office—people taking calls on the phone, the printers going. But she was remembering last night, when she, Dean, and Sam had _killed a ghost_. It had been the most thrilling and life-altering thing she had ever done—after researching the Sandover building and its history, they had recognized the face of their ghost, and learned that there was an item of his still in the building—a single glove. Together, they had fought off the ghost, found and burned the glove. All with just fractions of seconds to spare. After they came within an inch of their lives, they had gone back to Dean's office, where Sam had proposed they quit their jobs and go hunt down ghosts. Alex had thought it was an exciting prospect, and even let herself dream about actually doing it for all of thirty seconds, until Dean had shot the idea down.

Alex was so lost in her thoughts there at her desk that she didn't even notice when Mr. Collins came in. If she had looked up, she might have seen his eyes traverse her bare legs, she might have seen him swallow strangely, she might have seen him go into his office faster than he usually did. But she was staring at her screen blankly, unsure. Just, unsure.

Sam had been disappointed after Dean had said no, and then he left without talking to Alex about it. She honestly would have dropped everything in that moment and left with him right then. Something about what happened last night felt _right_. But this morning, Sam had come in, with a face of stone, and he didn't even say hello. Alex sighed restlessly, staring at the kitten wallpaper of her computer. She could hear some kind of commotion going on in the cubicles behind her, but was unable to care or look away from the kittens... their soft white fluffy fur, their wide blue eyes, their wispy whiskers... she felt a growing sense of hatred the longer she stared at it, and suddenly a burst of pure, undiluted rage. "I_ hate cats_!" She shouted, and taking hold of the computer with both hands, she stood up and ripped it from its chords, and threw it across the room, where it smashed against the wall. She stared at it, blinking in surprise, then realized someone was standing just off to her side.

Sam stood there, staring at her, a fire poker in his hand. He seemed a little out of breath. "I... just killed my phone," he explained, which explained nothing, but she nodded, feeling like she understood him perfectly. "I hate cats. Like, literally despise them," she replied, and he, also, nodded, seeming to understand her somehow. She rounded her desk, coming to him and speaking in hushed, urgent tones. "Let's go. You and me. We'll go on the road, like you said. We can ask Dean again, but even if he doesn't want to... we can. We're supposed to."

"Yeah," Sam said, nodding and looking happier than she remembered him ever looking.

As if on cue, the door to the right of Alex's desk opened. Miller Collins peered out at then sullenly, then glanced at the smashed computer to his left. He then stepped aside, holding the door open further. "Come into my office. Both of you."

They shared a glance and obliged quietly, their momentary high fading into quiet dread.

"Look, sorry about the phone—" Sam started, but stopped talking when he saw Mr. Collins reaching out to touch him on the forehead. Alex watched, mystified, and then Mr. Collins touched her, too. And suddenly, she remembered everything—she was Alex Winchester, that was Sam, her brother, and... her jaw dropped and she looked down at herself then at Mr. Collins… a.k.a. Castiel.

"What the _hell_, Cas?" She asked, mouth agape.

"Explain. Now," Sam said angrily.

"Is this real?" Alex asked, looking around and down at herself again. She looked at Cas, barely able to process her thoughts. He looked stoic, as usual. "Yes, this is real," he replied apathetically. "This was Zachariah's idea. It was to prove to the three of you that the life you live; hunting, is what you're meant to do. It's your destiny."

"Is this some kind of sick joke?" Sam asked, aghast. "You take three weeks of our lives for your own angel comedy hour?"

"And who the hell is Zachariah? Another one of your angel pals?" Alex felt herself shaking in outrage. In the tiny dress, with her legs bare, she felt naked. "You took all of our memories? You… turned me into… this?"

"It was not my idea," Castiel said simply, as if that would fix everything.

"No, you just played along, watched me live a life I don't belong in... sit here, answer phones, worry about my college career, and stare at my kitten screensaver…?" She was getting loud now. "I don't even _like _cats, Cas!"

"Yes, I heard you. You shouted it quite loudly," he said, looking at her sideways, looking mildly annoyed. "The point of all this is that you—the Winchester family—are supposed to hunt. It's in your very blood. But more than that, you're supposed to _stick together_." His eyebrows knit together as if in earnestness. "The past three weeks, the two of you have been closer than you have in the entire past year."

He had a point, but it wasn't one the twins were happy about. Sam and Alex glanced at each other. Unlike a few moments ago, when they had been Sam Wesson and Alex Williams, the glance was now tinged with bitterness. "Maybe that was because I couldn't remember anything about what he's done to screw up the family," Alex said, to which Sam scoffed and chuckled humorlessly. "You sure do know how to hold a grudge, don't you Alex."

"It's not a grudge, it's me remembering the facts," she replied mercilessly.

There was a silence, and Castiel looked down, seeming to be disappointed.

"Yeah. Well, Cas, you got us," Sam said brusquely. "Good job." Heated, he took a few steps back, running a hand through his hair, trying to calm down.

Alex just stared at Castiel hostilely. "I don't get it. What gives you angels the right to think you can screw with our heads like that. Huh?"

"Alex—" Castiel started, only to be cut off.

"No. You did something that violated us. Nothing you say can justify it, so don't even try." She crossed her arms angrily, beyond incredulous at the entire thing. "I'm so tired of your weird tests and stupid righteous attitude!"

Castiel seemed to be trying to remain reasonable. "It's regrettable that you feel violated…"

"Yeah, regrettable!" Alex interrupted again, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Thanks, _Cas_. This is my life, and I don't appreciate—"

"The life that_ I _gave you!" Castiel thundered, and the room seemed to darken, his deep voice seemed to carry a power that it hadn't before. A little intimidated, Alex had taken a step back, in shock. Behind her, Sam was staring, slack jawed, at Cas.

The angel's expression was fiery—jaw clenched, brow furrowed, breathing harder than normal. He was _angry,_ and it was all directed at Alex. "You _know_ that before I touched the hand of healing upon you, your life was not what it is today. You were set free of the prison of your mind. By _me_." He had approached her, and was staring her down unflinchingly. The edge of his trench coat brushed against her bare knee. "But you've never once stopped to _realize_ what I did for you. Have you truly never wondered why, after a lifetime of being mute, how you could suddenly speak? And not only speak, but speak perfectly, as if you had been speaking your entire life. I didn't simply give you the ability to speak, I made you _whole_. It wasn't easy, Alex Winchester."

His bright blue eyes seemed to hold some unspoken pain or secret. "It cost me more than you know." His voice softened, his anger faded, and he looked away. "You make me regret the kindness I've shown you."

Alex stared at him, stunned and speechless, feeling very, very small. And suddenly, she and Sam were no longer at Sandover, but in a very dim motel room. Castiel was gone.

The twins were silent for a short moment as their eyes adjusted to the darkness. "We were staying here right after Dean got out of the hospital," Sam said, and Alex realized he was right—she saw their bags piled in the corner, just as they'd left them.

Exhausted in a way that wasn't physical, Alex sat on a bed, burying her face in her hands, trying to process everything. She felt overwhelmed, tricked, but mostly humiliated. She heard Sam sit opposite of her, but she didn't look up.

Suddenly, there was a sound to their right. "Whoa. Honey, I'm home." It was Dean, in a business suit, his hair slicked down. "Well would you look at us. It's like Halloween," he commented wryly, looking at his siblings.

"Dean!" Sam said in relief, standing. "So I'm guessing you met Zachariah."

Dean's brow furrowed slightly. "How'd you know?"

"Cas told us," Sam said, glancing at Alex, who still sat on the bed. "He was... our floor manager."

"Of course he was," Dean said. "Well, I, for one, am starting to get real tired of these angels yanking our chains around." He looked at Alex, who still wore the dress and heels. "You look ridiculous, by the way." She made a face at him.

"Well what did Zachariah say to you?" Sam asked. "Hopefully more than Cas did, because he barely explained anything. He just chewed Alex out."

"Yeah?" Dean asked, looking mildly interested.

"Do you have to bring that up?" Alex asked Sam, giving him a somber look. He shrugged.

"Listen, before we get all heart to heart, I need food," Dean said. "Real food. And a beer. Lots and lots of beer. Bring on the carbs."

"Yeah. Okay," Sam agreed. They went and grabbed dinner at a local diner, dressed the way they were. Alex listened as her brothers did most of the talking, her mind far away. She faded in and out of paying attention.

"I mean, I was drinking rice milk," Dean said. "_Rice milk_. I had a gym membership, and ate _salad_." He said salad like it was a dirty word.

"I went home every night and played XBOX. Like all night." Sam admitted sheepishly.

"The highlight of my day was Oprah," Alex said darkly.

"Wait, you don't really like Oprah?" Dean asked, grinning and plunking a fry into ketchup. "So, you ever gonna tell me what Cas had to say to you?" Dean asked as he chomped the fried potato.

Alex stared at her plate, her eyes seeing nothing, her mind going to a strange place. When she spoke, it was softly. "I never thought of it. Not even once. Not even for a second."

"Thought about what?" Dean asked impatiently.

"I didn't just get my voice back, Dean," Alex said, looking up at him, disturbed. "I got the ability, the skill, of speech. I never had to have therapy, I never had problems, or a lisp, or an impediment... I just, knew how to talk. Right away. Why didn't any of us ever question that? Ever?"

Looking as though the thought had never occurred to him, Dean frowned. Sam, however, leaned forward. "I mean, we did, a little... but after our lives... all the supernatural stuff we've been through, all the unexplainable stuff we've seen... I guess we just didn't think about it. I wouldn't feel too bad about it, honestly." He took a sip of his beer, and Alex glanced at him sullenly.

"Yeah. Well, I _do_ feel bad."

* * *

Alex sat outside the motel on the edge of the sidewalk, underneath a clear midnight sky. It was cold, and she was listlessly watching highway traffic pass by, thinking. She was once again looking like herself—in her favorite pair of jeans, her well-loved boots, a tank top, and a warm cargo jacket. She'd showered off the makeup and hair products, no longer a caricature of herself.

She thought back to the past three weeks, where she had been free of all the pains of the past. Instead of torturing herself over her brothers, the apocalypse, the endless list of hardships in her life, she had been content to fix her hair every day, watch mindless TV every night, and her biggest concern had been what outfit she would wear for work the next day. So now, she could say she knew what a "normal life" was like—and it was pretty horrible overall.

She still didn't like the fact that the angels had duped them like that—stolen their memories, transplanted their lives—but she was beginning to grudgingly admit to herself that treating Cas the way she had probably hadn't been right. It hadn't been his idea, after all. She thought of her attraction to him when she thought he was a man named Miller Collins, and felt intense embarrassment. The angels must have implanted that into her mind along with the other things, as some kind of joke, or test. Who knew.

All Alex knew is that when he stood up to her like that, told her off about her behavior... at first she'd been humiliated and pissed. Now, she realized she had to respect him for having the courage to tell her. She thought of his face when he said he regretted the kindness he'd shown her. Inside, her heart broke a little, and she thought of how ungrateful and undeserving she was, how much she regretted her words and actions, how disappointed she was in her lack of self control. If Cas could have seen, before he healed her, how she would treat him, he probably never would have bothered at all.

She drew in a deep breath and let it out, getting a little nervous about what she was about to do. She screwed her eyes shut, and in a voice just above a whisper, she spoke. "Cas, are you there?"

She opened her eyes, and flinched slightly. "Hello, Alex," he said, standing just in front of her.

She stared up at him in surprise. "Wow, just like that. You come when I call?"

"Of course. I am your guardian angel," he replied, almost sounding like he was surprised she would ask that.

She looked at him sidelong, surprised. "You are?" she asked. Last time she'd heard, Uriel said those orders or whatever were no longer valid.

Cas looked down slightly. "Yes. Uriel was lying about that."

"Oh," she said, and then patted the spot beside her, indicating that he should sit. He didn't seem to understand for a couple seconds, then joined her, sitting close enough that their elbows brushed against each other. Since the curb was so low to the ground, his knees were level with his chest, but he didn't seem to have the poise Alex had (her arms were leaned onto her knees). He just sat there, arms at his sides, knees in his face, looking ridiculous. She couldn't hide the smile that sprang to her face.

"I'm sorry, I can't... you need to put your arms on your knees... that just looks... wrong," she said, and he frowned, not understanding. Uncertainly, he placed a hand on each knee, his arms straight against his legs, increasing his awkward ridiculousness by about a hundred percent. Chuckling out loud now, Alex shook her head. "No, no, that's worse," she said, and grabbed his forearm, and showed him what she meant, guiding him to a more casual, relaxed stance. He looked at her hand on his arm, then at her, his expression unreadable. Alex's smile faded, and she let go, remembering why she had called him. She wet her lips and mustered her courage, bracing herself.

"I, uh, needed to tell you something," she began, not entirely sure how she was going to work it all. She struggled for the words, her pride taking a hit as she forced herself to begin talking. "I'm sorry Cas." She looked at him, and he looked back, his expression stern as usual. "I've been... a total bitch to you. I mean, some times you _did _deserve it," she clarified, not wanting to mislead him. "Uh, but… I told you that I hated you. And that I wished you would die, pretty much. At the time, I was pissed as hell, and the words just... came out. I was trying to hurt you. Because, you hurt me."

She swallowed and sighed, shutting her eyes. She hated this. "And after all you've done for me... you didn't deserve that. Not really." She opened her eyes again and forced herself to look him in the eye. "What you did for me... you're right. You gave me a new life. I hate apologies, Cas. But, I hope you know I'm sincere." She sighed heavily and shrugged. "Well—that's all I got."

He looked at her a moment longer, stern expression less. "Yes. I do know you are sincere. And I accept your apology." He looked out ahead of them, his expression a little softer. "I have thought about how difficult it would be to suddenly have memories back you didn't remember. You were disconcerted. And felt what was yours was taken away. In truth, it was."

Alex glanced at him sidelong, a little surprised he had thought about that. "Pretty much." They sat in silence a moment longer, Alex lost in her thoughts. "Cas… the more I think about it, I don't understand how or why you could have been so good to me."

He almost smiled—his eyes crinkled slightly at the edges as he watched the traffic passing by. "There seemed to be no other course of action to take."

"You could have done nothing," Alex said, watching his expression. "I would never have known the difference."

He turned his head toward her, his eyes meeting hers with an odd intensity. "I was not willing to do nothing."

The way he said it made her feel she couldn't maintain eye contact, and she shivered slightly, self-conscious. "It's late. I should get in there before they come looking."

She stood up, and he followed suit.

"Goodnight, Alex," he said, and she looked at him, feeling like she was seeing him for the first time. In uncharacteristic shyness she didn't recognize, she tucked her hair behind her ear, avoiding solidly meeting his eyes. "Goodnight, Cas."

He stayed and watched until she was safely inside, and then he left.

* * *

_Author's Note:__ Geez, I did it again... wrote an insanely long chapter (9,000 words, seriously?!). This chapter was so fun to write... so many little humorous moments... I hope you enjoyed it :D and, finally, a turning point, a beginning of a mutual understanding for Calex! Are you as relieved as I am? Honestly, I thought they'd never stop fighting.  
_

_Thanks for the continued reviews! Let me know what you thought about this chapter, if you would ;)_

_Oh, and PS... OH MY GOSH YOU GUYS CAS IS BACK MARCH 20TH ON SPN! Can. Not. Wait...! Oh, and he's a season 9 regular...! Life, made. _


	15. Metafiction

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 15 / Metafiction

_"Fate is knocking at the door, but I don't live there anymore._"  
- Sonic Syndicate_  
_

* * *

**Four Days Later**

Alex rolled over on the motel bed, flipping onto her stomach, thoroughly engrossed in the book she was reading—after all, reading about _your own life_ through someone else's eyes was fascinating, if not a little awkward and horrifying, too. That morning the Winchesters had been blindsided by a strange discovery… a series of books, starring _them_. On the other end of the room, Dean and Sam were both on their laptops, glued to their screens, the books in question littering the table around them. The books included specific and perfect detail all the things they had done for the past three or so years. Although they were set on finding out who this author Carver Edlund was and how he or she knew about the Winchesters' private lives, after Sam had stumbled onto the Supernatural fandom online, they'd gotten temporarily distracted.

Dean was chuckling. "Whoa, check it out… these fans are not playing around. There are '_Sam_ girls' and '_Dean_ girls.'"

"Are you serious?" Alex looked up from the pages of _Wendigo_, laughing. Dean looked at her over his shoulder. "Why's that funny?" he demanded.

"'Cuz what those fans don't know is that both of you suck," she replied, already looking back at the pages of her book. "I'm an Alex girl, personally," she quipped, and Dean rolled his eyes and turned back to his computer screen. "Hey, what's a 'slash fan?'" he asked.

Sam looked hesitant to answer, and Alex looked up in mild curiosity. "As in... Sam-slash-Dean," Sam said. "Together."

There was a short silence, where Dean and Alex were trying to figure out exactly what was being implied. "Like, _together _together?" Dean asked, his voice full of the beginnings of incredulous disbelief.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed, drawing disgusted expressions from both of his siblings. "_Ew_." Alex's face was twisted in repulsion.

"They _do _know we're brothers, right?" Dean asked, sounding hopeful that there had been some kind of misunderstanding. However, Sam shrugged, his expression pretty disgusted. "Doesn't seem to matter. And there's also some… 'Wincest'… of all three of us. _Together. _And, there's also, uh... 'Twincest'?"

Alex sat up, throwing the book down, her face stricken with shock. "Oh my _God_. What is _wrong _with these people? I'd rather rip out my own lungs."

Sam's chuckled. "Well, looks like some people wish you would… I just found a post called 'Alex: Love her or Hate her?' on one of the fan sites. Some fan named _River Winters_ posted this on it: 'Hate her! The series is perfect except for the awkward addition of Alex, who I think undermines the entire story. Instead of being about men and brothers in arms, it's about these two brothers and their mostly useless, third-wheel sister—she's stubborn and hard headed and too talkative once she gets her voice back in the last few books. Alex Winchester ruins the entire series for me.'"

Alex made a face. "Geez, sorry for existing?"

"No, this one's better," Dean said, reading from his screen. He clearly thought the whole thing was funny. "_LisaMack _wrote 'Alex Winchester is a totally unbelievable and flat character, and her mysterious, unexplained recovery from the lifelong condition of muteism is just too far fetched for me. Wish she wasn't in the books; I also don't like how she gets so much time with my boys.'" Dean paused. "_Her_ boys?" He scoffed. "What, we're personal property now?"

"I'm not _believable_?" Alex asked, frowning at the ridiculousness of it all. "_LisaMack_ isn't believable." Both of her brothers tried to hide their chuckles at her indignant comment. "It's not funny! I mean, don't these people have anything better to do with their time than complain about me?"

"Haters gonna hate," Dean said with a good natured shrug.

"Well, maybe not everyone," Sam said. "Someone with the pen name _charisma26_ seems to like you, Al. She wrote 'I love Alex and don't understand all the hate! She is an inspiring character, she's been through more than most people could deal with, and she's honestly one of the strongest female characters I've ever read! Supernatural would not be the same without her!'"

"Now _there's_ a person with a brain," Alex said, finally pleased. "Thanks, _charisma26_."

Dean was reading out loud from his screen, ignoring both of his siblings. "'Hey guys, please read my brofic, in which Sam and Dean hunt on their own. No Alex in this alternate universe. Please don't hate, I know brofic isn't everyone's cup of tea.'" Dean closed his laptop. "Dude, this crap is just weird. _Funny_... but weird."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, closing his laptop too and leaning his elbows onto the table. "It's amusing, if not a little… uh, creepy, to say the least, but we really need to find out who wrote the series."

"Okay, so where do we start?" Alex asked, sliding off the bed and crossing the room to her brothers. "The name Carver Edlund turned up nothing on the databases or address searches."

"We go to the publisher," Sam said. "Carver Edlund is probably a pen name."

Dean was already standing up. "Well, what are we waiting for? Daylight's wasting."

"Dean, we_ just_ got here," Sam pointed out, sounding reluctant. Alex couldn't say she was crazy about getting back into the Impala for another however-many hour drive. But Dean was grabbing his jacket. "And we're just leaving," he replied, his mind already made up. The twins exchanged a mutually sympathetic glance, and with no choice, slowly got up and followed their brother. Yet again and as always, the Winchesters were on the move.

* * *

"Thanks for all your help!" Sam called as he sat back into the passenger side of the Impala. The publisher, Sera, waved from the front porch of her house, her expression a little starstruck. "Did you guys really_ have_ to show her your tattoos? I think you rendered her brain to complete mush," Alex said, still laughing at how the publisher had basically lost her crap when Sam and Dean showed her their anti-possession tattoos. "Hey, it worked, didn't it?" Dean asked, but by the grin she could hear in his voice, she knew he thought it was funny too. "We got Carver Edlund's real name _and_ address. All thanks to these handsome faces, bulging muscles, and irresistible sex appeal."

Dean and Sam chuckled, and Alex leaned forward between their seats, grinning. "And long, flowing locks," she said, waving the title book, _Supernatural_ at them—on which a shirtless Sam (who looked more like Fabio) had sandy hair to his shoulders blowing away from his face. The rest of the cover wasn't much better—Dean was in a sleeveless cutoff shirt and looked like a knock off of a Street Fighter character—Alex was in the background, leaning seductively against the car, in a tiny strapless shirt that clung to her ridiculously disproportionate body (no one's waist was that tiny). And her hair was platinum blonde.

"Did the guy who illustrated this cover even _read_ the book?" Sam asked as Dean pulled the Impala out into the road. The ridiculousness of the book cover had them all giggling as they set off for Kripke's Hollow, the town where Chuck Shurley, a.k.a. Carver Edlund lived.

* * *

**The Next Day- Kripke's Hollow**

"Well, _that _was interesting," Dean commented wryly as they sped away from Chuck Shurley's dilapidated house. Sam chuckled and said something back, but Alex wasn't paying attention. In the back seat with a hefty manuscript draft, she was busy skimming the text with increasing attentiveness. There was so much detail, and it described the past three days of their life perfectly… the way they had gotten zapped back to the motel, her apology to Cas, the burnt pancakes they had for breakfast, the long drive, the encounter in the comic book shop, the friendly spat Dean and Sam had gotten into over the music on the radio… how did Chuck know all of this?

When they had arrived to his house, they had found a small, ordinary man in a dressing gown who had been astonished to learn that his 'creations' of Dean, Sam, and Alex were real, living, breathing people. Shaken up and unable to provide them with answers, he'd sent them away with the newest manuscript he'd been working on, telling them that he needed a drink and that he had no idea how he knew everything he did about them. Only that he had 'visions.'

So, with nothing else to do, the Winchesters were headed to find a laundromat until they could come up with something, or figure out how exactly this Chuck guy was doing what he was doing. Alex flipped to a few pages further. This page took place earlier that morning, when they had been on the road to Chuck's house. Her eyes got big as she read further.

Supernatural, The Monster at the End of this Book (working title), Page 14. 

_Alex leaned tiredly against the window of the car, yet again letting her mind wander to a place she would never admit to anyone that it went. Castiel. Ever since she had apologized to him, she hadn't seen him. Not that she wanted to, she told herself. Even though she did. To Alex, Castiel was someone she was beginning to dare to trust. She wasn't sure if she would ever understand him very well, but after all he had done for her, she was beginning to think, maybe, he wasn't as bad as she'd originally thought. And it didn't hurt that he was attractive, either... uncomfortable with the direction her thoughts were taking, Alex forced herself to sit up, trying to banish the thoughts from her mind._

_What the hell?_ Alex glanced up from the draft, first at Dean, then at Sam, and stealthily took that page of the manuscript and cleared her throat, shoving the paper into the pocket of her jacket. That was the last thing she needed—Dean and Sam knowing she found Castiel physically attractive. Which, she didn't! Or at least, she didn't want to, and didn't think she _should_. He wasn't... a human. And besides, he was simple, unremarkable even, wasn't he? There was no reason for her to be attracted to him. But she thought of the tousled wild hair, the eyes that could stare into her soul, the stern line of his mouth. The subtle ways his expressions shifted. The crinkles around his eyes when a smile crossed his face. The constant five o'clock shadow. The way her name sounded when he spoke it. The power and authority he wielded... _Oh my God_, Alex thought miserably. _I'm the world's biggest idiot. Why couldn't I pick a human to be attracted to? Someone who I would actually have a chance with?_

Dean pulled into the laundromat parking lot, the car bumping over the uneven pavement. A sudden, terrible thought came to Alex, and she hurriedly paged through the manuscript. The drive to Chuck's, the visit with Chuck—and there, staring back at her: _Alex glanced up, first at Dean, then at Sam, and stealthily took that page of the manuscript and cleared her throat, shoving the paper into the pocket of her jacket. That was the last thing she needed—Dean and Sam knowing she found Castiel physically attractive. _

Agape, Alex took that page too, shoving it into her pocket with the other page, mortified. The second Dean stopped the car, she hopped out anxiously, hugging the draft to herself. This was weird, weird, _weird_! And she didn't want anyone, especially not her brothers, to know about her love life. Or, her embarrassing_ lack _of one. Or her entirely unrealistic and irrational crush. Alex thought in another moment she might have laughed at herself—a capable hunter who wasn't scared to face any kind of paranormal enemy, but turned into a dramatic thirteen-year-old girl when she thought her brothers might read her diary.

"The hell is wrong with you?" Dean asked as he got out of the car, giving her one of his suspicious, narrowed-eyed stares. "Just, uh, really stoked to do laundry!" Alex said, realizing that she overdid it, not quite managing to sound normal.

"Yeah, whatever, lemme see that," he said, motioning for the manuscript. She handed him the manuscript right away, trying not to let her reluctance show through. "Weirdo," Dean said, and turned to go into the laundromat. Sam was grabbing all the bags out of the trunk, and Alex told herself to stop thinking, and just start helping with laundry.

Dean settled down onto one of the counters, intently paging through the manuscript. Alex and Sam began working on the laundry, dumping everything out and sorting it into piles. Alex glanced at Dean every few seconds nervously. She wasn't sure why she was so freaked out about it. Maybe because being teased about that would hurt too much. She wished, so badly, that she wasn't the way she was... that is, headed for spinster life. But past a certain age, she guessed it was hopeless. She was pretty much a freak, and needed to just accept it. Her lifestyle didn't exactly leave her much in the way of meeting men. No wonder she was getting so desperate as to be attracted to an angel. _No, stop thinking about him, _she told herself, and glanced up at Dean again.

"I'm sitting in a laundromat, reading about myself sitting in a laundromat reading about myself. My head hurts," Dean said.

"There's got to be something this guy's not telling us, right?" Sam asked, gathering all of his darks into a huge pile.

"He's psychic," Alex said, throwing all the lights into one of the laundromat carts. "Has to be. Can you think of another explanation?"

"Well, no, but that doesn't mean there _isn't_ one," Sam said. He turned and tossed his darks into one of the machines.

Dean began to read from the manuscript. "_Sam tossed his gigantic darks into the machine. He was starting to have doubts about Chuck, about whether he was telling the whole truth. Alex glanced at Dean, scowling._"

Alex's scowl rear-ended into a surprised face. "_Alex's scowl dropped in surprise_," Dean read, chuckling a little now.

"Stop it, Dean," Sam said.

"_'Stop it, Dean,' Sam said,_" Dean read, thoroughly enjoying himself. "Guess what you do next, Sam." Sam just turned around, his expression unpleasant.

"'_Sam turned his back on Dean, his face brooding and pensive.'_ I mean, I don't know how he's doing it, but this guy is doing it. I can't see your face, but those are definitely your 'brooding and pensive' shoulders."

Sam scoffed over his shoulder at Dean. "Ah, and you just thought I was a dick," Dean said, to which Sam turned around, looking impressed. "The guy's good."

"Good? He's scary," Alex said. "He's inside our _heads_."

"'_He's inside our _heads,_' Alex said with her trademark sarcastic flair." _Dean all but giggled. "Trademark sarcastic flair, I like that."

"Give me _that_," Alex said, grabbing the stack of paper from him and whacking him over the head. He threw up his hands in pitiful protest, still giggling.

* * *

**The Next Day - Chuck's House**

"This was all so much easier before you were real," Chuck said, pacing in front of them. His house was dark and messy, littered with papers and empty bottles.

"We can take it; just spit it out," Dean said impatiently. "What does the new chapter you wrote say is gonna happen next?"

Chuck looked between all three of the Winchesters hesitantly. "It's Lilith. She's coming for Sam."

"What do you mean?" Dean demanded, stepping closer to Chuck, whose eyes widened slightly. He was clearly intimidated by Dean. "Coming to _kill _him? When?"

"Tonight," Chuck said.

"Where?" Alex asked intently. Chuck looked at her and nodded, muttered something, sat on his couch, and put on reading glasses. "Uh... let's see, uh…_ 'Lilith patted the bed seductively. Unable to deny his desire, Sam succumbed, and they sank into the throes of fiery demonic passion.'_"

"Whoa," Alex said, and Dean's expression matched hers: total disbelief and disgust.

Sam, however, was laughing. "You're kidding me, right?"

"Why are you laughing?" Alex demanded, not seeing the humor in the situation.

"Why aren't _you_?" Sam asked, and then seeing Dean's disapproving glare, his smile faded a little. "I mean, come on. '_Fiery demonic passion_?'"

"It's just a first draft," Chuck said defensively.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," Dean said, suddenly thinking of something. "Lilith is a little girl."

_Oh yeah._ All three Winchesters looked at Chuck, waiting for him to explain. "Oh, no, uh, this time she's a '_comely dental hygienist from Bloomington, Indiana._'"

"Well_ that _makes it all better," Alex said with her trademark sarcastic flair. "You need to give us some context, here, Chuck. What happens before the… _demonic passion_?"

"Well, I don't really… I only got the… fiery part… I mean, I can let you guys read it, but it's really random. Just, basically, what you guys do all day after you leave here."

"Great. Perfect," Dean said wryly. "So then what happens _after _the fiery whatever?"

"I don't know, it hasn't come to me yet," Chuck said, shrugging shallowly.

"Geez, what good are you for?" Alex asked, a little rudely. But Chuck just looked at her, a little smile on his face, like he was fond of her. His eyes searched her face in an odd way. "You know, you're exactly how I imagined you. Even better, in fact."

Both of the brothers looked at Chuck strangely, and Dean grabbed Chuck by the shoulder, startling the writer. "Hey—keep the creepy flirting out of the equation, especially when it comes to my sister. Got it?"

"Uh, yeah Dean," Chuck said, trying to act cool, but failing completely. "Now, about this whole love scene between Sam and Lilith—" Dean started.

Sam didn't let him finish. "Dean, look, there's nothing to worry about. Lilith and me? In bed?"

Alex looked at him sidelong, saying what everyone else in the room was thinking. "What's so crazy about that?"

Sam's expression fell into something like chagrin or frustration, and he looked down, saying nothing.

* * *

**A Few Hours Later**

"What color you want, honey?" the woman asked Alex, who looked up from her hands, which laid flat on the table.

"I don't know. Red. Whatever color other girls get," she said impatiently. The woman tilted her head to the side, perplexed. "Lots of colors, honey. You pick one."

"_Red_," Alex repeated, quickly losing her patience. "Just pick a damn red bottle and paint my friggin' nails, lady!"

"Okay, okay," the lady said, looking offended, but quickly complying.

Alex didn't know how any woman could subject herself to this, but this is what Dean had ordered her to do. Sit in a frigging nail shop. It seemed like one of the more ludicrous plans he'd ever had. After leaving Chuck's, Dean had immediately said they were leaving town. As luck would have it, the only way out of town, a bridge, was flooded. So, back to the drawing board, they had read the chapter Chuck had written, and Dean had the harebrained idea to do everything _opposite_ of what they usually did in an attempt to avoid what was supposed to happen with Lilith that night.

That was why he sent Alex off, alone, and told her to do everything she normally wouldn't have—"you know, girl stuff… go get your nails done, I don't know!" Because if she could have chosen what to do with her free time, she would have wanted to go to a gun range and target practice or read a book in bed or lift weights. She was pissed off that she was being subjected to this waste of time instead of doing something to prepare or stop Lilith's approach. Honestly, she thought she should have stayed with Sam. But Dean had insisted this was the only way to avoid the outcome they didn't want.

"You want design on here?" the nail lady asked, and Alex opened her mouth to say no, then remembered what Dean had said. Do the opposite of what you normally would. "Yeah," she said, and the lady handed her a menu of options. Alex looked at the options, searching for the one she hated the most.

* * *

Alex returned to the motel room at dusk and entered sullenly. Sam looked up as she entered, then his face scrunched up. "Whoa… you look… weird."

Alex just crossed her arms. "I got my _nails_ done. I got my _hair _done. I went _window shopping_ at the mall, and then I let some old lady do a makeover on me. I'm exhausted, even though I have literally done _nothing_."

"I mean, you look…"

"Ridiculous?" She asked, looking down at herself. She was wearing a short jean skirt, thigh-high boots, a dark red top, and a pleather crop jacket over it. Her hair had been curled and glossed, her nails were shiny red with ridiculous cherries on them. And the makeup—dark eyeshadow, dark liner. If this wasn't the opposite of what she'd normally do, nothing would be.

At that moment, Dean burst in, and headed straight for his bag. "Come on. We're getting out of here."

"What? Where?" Sam asked, standing in surprise.

"How? I thought the bridge—" Alex asked, and Dean suddenly noticed her appearance and did a double take. "The hell are you wearing? Never mind. We are leaving this motel, this town. I don't care if we got to swim, we are getting out. I tried doing everything backwards, but it still happened, just like Chuck said." He looked around, confused. "Dude, where are all the hex bags?"

Alex followed his gaze, realizing she hadn't noticed their absence.

"I burned them," Sam said.

"You _what_?" Dean asked dangerously.

"Sam!" Alex exclaimed, stunned. Her twin was attempting to explain, his expression earnest if not defensive. "Look, if Lilith is coming, which is a big 'if'—"

"No, no, no," Dean growled. "It's more than an 'if.' Chuck is not a psychic. He's a prophet."

"Wait, a what?" Alex asked, looking at Dean in complete confusion.

Dean let out a short, frustrated breath, impatient, shoving stuff into his bag. "Cas showed up, and apparently Chuck is writing the gospel of us."

At the mention of Castiel, Alex's stomach dropped a little. "Cas showed up?"

"Never mind that, let's get the hell out of here," Dean said, and headed back to his bags. Sam shut his eyes and wet his lips. "No."

Getting agitated, Dean threw down his bag. "Sam, Lilith is gonna _slaughter _you."

"Maybe she will, maybe she won't," Sam said evenly, trying to be calm and reasonable. "Only one way to find out, Dean, and I say bring her on."

"That does _not _sound like a good idea, Sam…" Alex said, her voice full of caution.

"You think I'll do it, don't you?" Sam asked dispiritedly. "You think I'll go dark side."

"_Yes_!" Dean barked out. "Okay? Yes. The way you've been acting lately? The _things_ you've been _doing_?"

Sam looked startled, and Dean nodded grimly. "Oh, I know. How you ripped Alastair apart like it was nothing. How you killed him without batting an eye." Sam looked at Alex, hurt and betrayed. She just stared back without remorse as Dean continued. She had nothing to be sorry about. "I know that you've been using your psychic crap, and you've been getting stronger. We just don't know why, and we don't know how."

"It's not what you think," Sam said, fumbling for words.

"Then what is it, Sam? 'Cause I'm at a total loss. Come on Alex, _now_."

He grabbed his bag roughly off the bed and headed for the door. He turned back to Sam and Alex. "Are you coming or not?"

"No."

Dean's jaw clenched, and he just stared at Sam unhappily for a couple beats, then threw his bag down and left, slamming the door behind him. The silence resounded for a couple seconds, and then Sam turned to look at Alex, his expression harsh. "Your favorite brother just left," Sam said. "Aren't you gonna follow him like you always do?"

Alex forced herself to ignore the jab. "Sam, just listen to reason," she said, receiving a soft, bitter laugh from Sam. Still, she forged ahead, trying to be gentle and reasonable. For his sake, not hers. "Confronting Lilith while knowing what Chuck said is going to happen—it's a bad idea. Let's dodge this bullet. Let's go while we still can."

"I'm not running away, Alex. I'm gonna face this. With or without you and Dean."

Alex wished she knew how to tell her brother how much she was worried, how scared she was for him. "It doesn't have to be you against the world, Sam," she said, coming closer to him, trying to get through to him. "Why can't we be on the same side?"

He shot her a dark look. "You're one to talk… I'm not the one who told Dean about Alastair."

Alex felt her expression sour. So, it was going to be like this. "No. You're not. And you _should_ have been. But I knew you weren't going to tell him." She felt a bitter smile on her face. "In fact, you hoped I was too out of it to see what you did to Alastair. But I saw." She felt her smile fade. "I saw." Sam's expression was dark. Alex swallowed, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by sadness. She didn't have any ammo left, and she had no idea how to get her brother to listen to reason or come with her. "Sam… can't we just back off this Lilith thing and figure out what's going on with you first? Please. I want you to be okay."

"I _am_ okay," he replied acidly. His expression was unflinching. "And this time, I'm doing things my way. For once in my life, you and Dean can't do anything to stop me." His jaw was set. "The door is right there. Now_ leave me alone_." He turned away, effectively ending the conversation.

Alex stared at his back, hurt, yeah, but mostly frustrated. She gave up, leaving the motel room and exiting into the chill of night. She looked to her left, where she could see Dean, his familiar silhouette lit by the blue glow of the soda machine… he was brushing past another figure angrily. Was that…?

Alex approached. It was. It was Castiel. "You must understand why I can't intercede," he was saying to Dean intently. "Prophets are very special. They're protected." Castiel looked at her in acknowledgement as she came to Dean's side. "Hello, Alex." He took in her appearance, and she could see that he was mildly perplexed by it. She didn't give him time to comment. "Cas. What's going on guys?"

"Well our good buddy Cas here was just telling me why he can't interfere with the prophesy… or basically lift a damn finger to help us," Dean said angrily, staring down the angel wrathfully. Alex shut her eyes for a couple seconds tiredly. "Okay. Well… what options does that leave us?"

"The hell if I know!" Dean exclaimed irately. "I'm about to go in there and knock Sam unconscious and tie him down, if we don't come up with something." He huffed a heavy breath out, sounding tired. "Come on, halo over here is fresh out of helpfulness," Dean said, shooting Castiel a glare and grabbing Alex by the arm, about to turn her away with him.

But Castiel spoke before he could. "You should both know… If anything threatens a prophet... _anything at all_… an archangel will appear to destroy that threat. Archangels are fierce. They're absolute." He lowered his chin, narrowed his eyes. "They're heaven's most terrifying weapon."

Dean's head tilted slightly to the side. "And these archangels, they're tied to prophets?"

"Yes," Castiel confirmed.

"So if a prophet was in the same room as a demon—" Dean said.

There was an oddly sly smile on Cas's face. "Then the most fearsome wrath of heaven would rain down on that demon." The smile was still there. "Just so you understand... why I can't help." He looked at Dean and then Alex significantly. Alex felt a smile spreading over her face. Was Castiel being tricky and clever? He was, and he knew it, too. Dean was nodding, also understanding. "Thanks, Cas."

"Good luck."

Castiel's gaze left Dean and met Alex's. If Dean had noticed, he might have been puzzled at the intense nature of it. But he was already heading for the car. "Come on Alex." She turned to look at Dean, then back at Cas—but he was gone. Disconcerted, she jogged to catch up with Dean. "But shouldn't I stay with Sam?"

"No. I don't want you alone with him," Dean said, and looked at her over the top of the car, sadly. "We'll be back in time to save him."

They swung into the car, and the engine roared to life. Dean tore out of the parking lot, and for a few minutes, the car was silent. Then, Alex turned slightly. "Dean, why does Cas help us like that?"

Dean didn't answer for a few seconds, and she could see that he was in deep thought. "Dunno. At first I thought he was… I dunno, a self-righteous asshole with wings." Dean chuckled, then grew pensive. "I owe the guy a whole hell of a lot. My life, your voice… this."

"Maybe he wants something," Alex thought out loud. In her experience, everyone had an ulterior motive. Dean, however, was shaking his head slowly. "I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"He's a freakin' angel. What the hell could he want from us? Flannel shirts? Rock salt? I mean, what do we have that anyone in their right mind would want?"

Alex chuckled. "Good point." She thought for a minute more, then tilted her head to the side, a sudden idea striking her. "Maybe he just wants friendship."

Dean made a face like he hadn't thought of it either.

"I mean, he cares about us. Our family. That much is obvious," Alex said. "Wanting to help someone just because… isn't that friendship?"

"Maybe… interesting theory." Dean squealed to a halt on the sidewalk in front of Chuck's house. "We'll have to think about that later. Let's get this jackass and hightail it back to Sammy."

Dean hurried inside, Alex close behind. They found Chuck sprawled on his couch, wrapping up in a blanket and drinking. He sat up in surprise upon seeing them. "What are you doing here? I didn't write this. Hey!"

Dean was yanking him to his feet roughly. "Come on. I need you to come with us."

"What? Where?" Chuck protested. "To the motel where Sam is," Alex said.

"But that's where Lilith is!" Chuck protested.

"Yeah, exactly," Dean said. "I need you to stop her."

"Are you _insane_?" Chuck demanded, yanking out of Dean's grip. "Lilith? I know what she's capable of, Dean! I wrote her."

Impatiently, Dean seemed to realize he needed to stop and explain. "All right, listen to me. You have an archangel tethered to you, okay? All you got to do is show up and boom! Lilith gets smoked."

"But I-I haven't seen that yet. Th-the story—" Chuck fumbled.

Alex smacked him in the back of the head. "_Shut up_, Chuck! Get yourself together!"

"But... I'm just a writer, I… I can't do anything!"

Dean grabbed him again. "This isn't a _story_ anymore, man. This is real! And you're in it! Now, I need you to get off your ass and fight."

Chuck drew in a deep breath, and for a second looked like he was bracing himself to do just that. And then he shook his head. "No friggin' way."

Dean sighed, blinking a few times. "Okay, well, then, how about this—I've got a _gun_ in my pocket, and if you don't come with me, I'll blow your brains out."

Chuck looked at Dean, slack jawed. "I thought you said I was protected by an archangel," he said timidly.

"Well, interesting exercise," Dean said, his voice lower. He had stepped a little closer to Chuck, who shrank back. "Let's see who the quicker draw is."

"You guys wouldn't _shoot me_…" Chuck said, trying to call a bluff. At this point, Alex grabbed a fistful of his shirt and shoved him back a couple steps. "Chuck. Enough with the bullshit." He stared at her in a mix of awe and fear. "You _know _how Dean and I feel about Sammy. We may fight each other ninety percent of the time, but I don't care about cutting you up a little to get you to do what I want… which is _help save my brother_." She showed him the knife she had pulled out of her belt loop and his eyes widened. "Now, _move_." She let him go with a shove, and put the knife back in its sheath.

"Okay, yeah, okay." He was smiling now, a breathy laugh escaping his mouth. "Wow, that was kinda hot."

"Shut _up_," Dean said, smacking him in the back of the head.

Chuck cowered slightly, grabbing his head with both hands. "Ow! Would you guys stop doing that?"

The unlikely threesome got into the Impala and Dean raced them back toward Sammy. Just as they entered the tiny downtown area, the engine puttered and choked. "Dammit!" Dean shouted, hitting the steering wheel in frustration. "Out of gas. I knew I was forgetting something!" Luckily they were close to a gas station, and Dean coasted in, making it to the pump on gas fumes. He jumped out of the Impala and pointed a threatening finger at Chuck, who sat in the back seat with Alex. "Don't go _anywhere_."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Chuck said, smiling nervously then seeming to think better of it. He grimaced at himself and looked at his lap. Alex looked at him out of the corner of her eye, then cleared her throat, spoke furtively. "Chuck, have you seen any visions of me and… anyone? In the future?"

"That's a really open-ended question, Alex," Chuck said, looking at her mistrustfully.

Alex sighed and rolled her eyes. She would have to spell it out, then. "Me and Cas, okay? The way you were writing some of the last chapter was like… a lead up to a romance."

At that comment, he smiled coyly. "Read a lot of romance novels, huh?" He asked, laughing nervously, then becoming quiet. "That was a rhetorical question. I know you read them."

Alex gave him a surprised look which quickly became an evil eye. "Everyone has their guilty, if embarrassing pleasures. Don't tell."

"Uh, well, it's mentioned in the books," Chuck said, flinching a little in anticipation of her reaction.

"Ah, shit Chuck," Alex said, bringing her face into her palm.

"I'm sorry. Please don't cut me."

"Come on Chuck," Alex said, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms. "I wouldn't cut you unless I absolutely had to."

"That's... comforting," Chuck said. He frowned in thought, growing pensive. "To, uh, answer your question, no, I haven't seen anything about you and Castiel. But, I do know that he likes you. More than anyone else, I think. That has to count for something, right?"

Alex looked at him sidelong again. "Hell if I know."

"And you… you like him, too, don't you. Only, you don't want to, do you? Because you don't know where it would lead."

She looked at him sharply. "_Nowhere_. It would lead nowhere."

Chuck drew in a deep breath, looking thoughtful. "I'm not so sure."

Alex fell silent, wishing she hadn't broached the subject at all. It had been a stupid question to ask. And far too revealing of herself. However, Chuck did know more about her than many people, didn't he?

Dean yanked the driver's door open and slid back into his seat, slamming the door behind him. "Okay, let's go cut this fiery demonic passion short."

* * *

**Later That Night**

They rode away from the Red motel under the cover of night, Sam in the back seat, Alex in the front, Dean driving. "So lemme get this straight, you didn't think_ once _about taking it?" Dean asked incredulously.

"You kidding me? Dude, you spent all day trying to talk me off the Lilith track," Sam said.

"I'm just saying… a deal to call off the whole thing… angels, seals, Lucifer rising, the whole nine?" Dean glanced at Sam in the rearview.

"Doesn't sound legit," Alex muttered. She heard Sam shift in the back seat.

"Yeah. And even if it were she would have found some way to weasel out of it. And all it would have cost us was our lives. Anyway, that's not the point."

"What's the point?" Dean asked.

"The point is, she's scared," Sam said. "I could see it. Lilith is running."

"What would hell's most terrifying bitch be running from?" Alex asked, completely disbelieving. "The Archangel we brought over for a visit?"

"No. Something else. But she was telling the truth about one thing."

"Which was?" Alex prompted.

"She's not gonna survive the apocalypse. I'll make sure of that."

"_We'll_ make sure of it," Dean corrected. "Together."

"Yeah, that's what I meant," Sam said, and grew quiet.

A few minutes of silence passed. "Listen. There's something we need to clear the air about," Dean said, and both of his siblings looked at him, waiting for him to continue. Dean seemed a little reluctant to start, huffing. "As much as the three of us go back and forth, and take sides and disagree, and fight and, well, pretty much never see completely eye-to-eye… I'm glad we've stuck together. If there's one thing I can count on, in the end, it's you guys."

Dean cleared his throat and cranked up the volume on the radio, sending the message that was all he had to say, and he didn't want any discussion. It happened to be of their favorite songs… Green Grass and High Tides by the Outlaws. In the back seat and unnoticed by his siblings, Sam sank down a little in his seat, shame rolling over him like the incoming tide. If they only knew the things he was doing in the dark these days… Dean wouldn't say that. And Alex would never give him a second chance ever again.

Oblivious, in the front seat, Alex just smiled in Dean's direction and grabbed her book from the floor of the car. She flipped open _Wendigo_, starting where she'd left off, reading in the dim light of street lamps.

_Dean looked back over his shoulder, checking to see that his sister was still there—in the back of his mind, he always feared he'd look and Alex would be gone without a sound. He could never forgive himself if that happened. But she was there, in her worn out cargo jacket and predictable side braid, holding her flare gun firmly, calmly, her expression leveled in attentive focus. Unlike almost everyone else there, she was not freaking out, not getting crazy, not drowning in fear. She just looked ready and determined. He almost smiled to himself, realizing how proud he was of his kid sister, who had something that could potentially hold her back in life—but she didn't let it. That was her, wasn't it? Strong despite what others would label a weakness. Resourceful, clever, and always doing her best, never complaining. She carried a lot of sadness with her, but faced every day just like he did: ready to kick its ass. _

Alex looked up from the pages, a little smile on her face. She glanced at Dean sidelong, smiling. He caught her glance. "What?"

"It's just a pretty good book," she said, smiling to herself. She glanced at Sam in the rearview. He looked distracted, off in another world, and troubled. Her smile faded, and she remembered the harsh words traded earlier. She wondered how many more wounds their relationship could sustain before dying completely. She wondered how someone who she had once been so close to could be so far away. Lately, the moments where they were _okay_, where they weren't at odds were less and less. Once again troubled, Alex put the book down, lost in the dark places of her mind.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ Special thanks to LisaMack and charisma26 for allowing me to use their pen names for this chapter… which was very fun to write, as per usual! Did you notice I made an appearance, too? I was the first online fan complaining about Alex. Hehe. Hope everyone enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for the continued support and love! It always makes my day to know what things you liked, what things made you laugh, etc. Anyway, we are getting closer to chapter 20, which is my favorite. Of all time (so far). Not to be a tease or anything. Err... anyway. R&R, please!  
_


	16. Family Matters

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 16 / Family Matters

"_We're all architects of our own private hell. No one can hurt us like we hurt ourselves."_  
- Young Guns

* * *

**A Week Later**

Just when she thought nothing else could ever surprise her… it did. Alex stared stonily into the flames where the body of her half-brother Adam burned. Even though she thought she should probably be sad that she never got a chance to meet the_ real_ Adam, sad that she hadn't known of his existence until a few days ago, sad that he died a slow and painful death at the hands of vengeful ghouls… all she could feel was a sense of betrayal and pained confusion. And wooziness. But that probably had something to do with the alcohol.

She turned away from her brothers and loped off into the woods, her flask of absinthe clutched tightly. Her brothers watched her go and exchanged a glance, then turned back to the fire. Sam and Dean would probably have taken the flask from her right then and there if they knew what was in there. A few years ago they had banned her from drinking absinthe entirely... it made her turn a little psycho... but she still snuck some at times. And today, of all days, she needed it.

Alex's breath made little puffs in the winter air, and her boots crunched against the frosty ground. She was at the point where she was all out of anger, and full of pained questions that she didn't want to have to ask. She thought she knew Dad. She thought she _knew_ him.

She plunked down unevenly and leaned against a large tree trunk, working on the alcohol. It burned like a bitch, but was doing the job of medicating her, numbing her, making everything seem funny and ridiculous instead of painful and raw. She sighed really loudly and shut her eyes, turning the flask up. She was beginning to feel good, loopy, like nothing mattered.

She took another huge gulp and when she opened her eyes, almost choked—standing in front of her was Cas, arms at his sides. Startled, she dropped the flask, the contents clumsily sloshing around. She grabbed it up and hugged it to herself, frowning up at Cas. He was difficult to see in the dim light. "What are _you_ doing here?"

He stepped a little closer, and she could see his face a little better in the light from the fire twenty feet off. He was looking at her intently... and was that concern on his features, or judgement? "I sensed your sorrow from Heaven," he said, his deep voice steady. "I thought I should see if you were…" he looked at the container she was clinging to, "all right."

She giggled throatily and tilted it toward him, as if in salute. "_Good_ for you, _Cas_," she said, saying his name slowly and deeply. It sounded so funny, and she was giggling again. "Now... unless you've got vodka or tequila with you, go _away_."

"I... have neither," he stated, his eyebrows furrowing slightly.

"Then get lost… I have _things_ to _do_," she said. The only person she wanted to spend time with right now was this flask of mind-numbing liquor. Cas crouched down in front of her, searching her face sternly. "Things to do? Sit here in the dark and consume dangerous amounts of alcohol?"

She turned her head sideways, momentarily intrigued. "Was that you being _funny_?" She asked, and giggled again, then accidentally hit herself in the teeth with the metallic rim of the flask. "Ouch, _son of a bitch_," she mumbled, looking at the container with a glare.

Cas tilted his head slightly, not understanding, but obviously trying to. "Why are you doing this, Alex?"

"Doing _what_?" She asked, her good humor slipping. Something about his tone didn't sit well with her. He looked at her a minute longer, as he weren't finished deciding what he thought. Feeling like she was being judged, she glared.

"I can _do_ what I _want_, " she said acidly, no longer in a good mood—at all. She stared at him and decided in misery that she hated everything about that handsome face and brilliant blue eyes that were staring into hers. Getting angry that she wasn't blasted to the point of not caring, she crossed her arms over her chest and the flask alike. "You wouldn't _get_ what I'm going through. Why this hurts so frickin' bad." She snorted. "And I _doubt_ you'd want to know, either…"

She was growing agonized, sadness running her over like a train. "Why did he do it, Cas? Why? Why did he take Adam to baseball games, and teach him to drive and visit him for his birthday?" She stared off unseeingly into Castiel's right shoulder, breathing heavily through her nose, glazing over. "He forgot mine and Sam's birthday half the time… left me _behind _on half the _hunts_." She chuckled darkly, a sound that was blurred by the alcohol. "You wanna know my favorite part? He _refused_ to learn sign language, said _I _didn't _need_ to, said he was gonna find a way to _fix_ me, said it was a waste of time, oh, and that _he_ didn't have the _time_, blah, blah, blah… ah, bastard. That son of a bitch." She was laughing now, her head lolling back and forth unsteadily.

"He thought he knew best, and the sad part is _I thought he did too_. Well, I know now _why_." She drew the word 'why' out for several seconds, pointing her finger at nothing in emphasis. "Cuz he thought I was a _second best_ daughter." She laughed again, but the sound came out wrong, like she'd been punched in the gut. "Cuz he had a _normal_ son he would rather have spent time with… who can blame him, huh?" She made a face. "He didn't want the world to know about his _weird_ daughter Alex who couldn't _talk_, or his son Dean who was never good enough, or Sam, who could have cared less about the _family business_." She got quiet, stared a minute, then looked at Cas sullenly. "You need to stop asking me all these questions," she said, then frowned to herself, not sure if she remembered him asking anything at all, actually.

Cas was just listening, filtering, looking at her in that annoying, thorough way, his forehead wrinkled. Getting agitated again, Alex jerked back, standing up and almost falling sideways. Cas stood too. "Well, _screw_ him, and _screw_ this, and _screw—_uh, screw the… um, uh the…" she forgot what she was going to say and frowned, swore, and went to take another swig of the alcohol, but Castiel silently took the flask from her.

"Hey! Give me that!" she shouted, and tried grabbing it, only to pitch forward unsteadily. Dropping the flask, Cas caught her, bracing her with his hands, and she stared into his eyes. His serious face was only inches from hers. "Stop _doing that_," she growled, and tried pushing him, but he wouldn't budge.

"Doing what?" he asked, confused.

"Uh," she blinked a couple times. "I don't… know?" she answered honestly. She couldn't remember what she meant, and the world was beginning to turn all kinds of strange angles and directions. She couldn't quite manage to keep her head in one place, and felt like she might float apart into a bunch of pieces. She moaned in annoyance and flopped her head forward, knocking it against Cas's chest. With her wrists each gripped tightly by his hands, she was hopelessly stuck.

"Hey, what's going on?" Dean's gruff voice came, along with the sound of his boots against leaves. He stopped short, seeing Alex in Castiel's grip. "_Cas_?"

"Yes," Castiel confirmed as Sam came up behind Dean. He looked down at the back of Alex's head in something like trepidation. "Your sister is very intoxicated."

"_No_, I'm _not_," Alex insisted matter-of-factly, her head shooting up. She swayed a little in Cas's grip.

"Geez," Sam commented, and the brothers looked at each other in a mixture of annoyance and exasperation. "Sorry Cas, she's a sloppy drunk," Sam said apologetically, grabbing the forgotten flask up from where it had fallen and sniffing it, then immediately grimaced. "_Uh_—absinthe—" he said, and Dean threw his hands up. "What the hell, Alex?" he demanded.

"And she drank like _half _of it," Sam said, shaking his head.

Dean looked disappointed and chagrined. "I turn my back on you for two seconds and… look at you—you're completely shitface _hammered_! Why?"

"No—I'm—not—!" Alex shouted in a weird cadence, and then grimaced, swallowing oddly. "Sure you're not," Dean said flatly, grabbing her from Cas by both arms. She was further agitated by that, and squirmed. "Lemme go!"

"Come on, Al, don't be like that," Dean tried, but she had pretty much lost any clarity she had. "You're ugly and your voice is _stupid_!" she shrieked, receiving an annoyed eye roll from Dean. "Ahh geez. It's been awhile since you've been this trashed."

"Get off me, because, I'm going to kill myself," she declared, squirming without stopping. "_Kill myself_!"

Castiel's expression went dark. "Alex, I can't allow you to do that."

"Oh my _God_," Sam was laughing now, maybe because that was all there was left to do. "Don't worry Cas. Anything she says right now… just don't take it seriously."

"I'll do it, I will!" Alex was losing it, and fast. "And you'll be sorry, sorry, srrrry…" she suddenly stopped and made a strange face. "I think I'm going to be sick, unff..." Dean let her go, and she stumbled a few steps and then fell forward, collapsing into a heap. She made more strange groans and then sobbed a couple times, declaring that everyone in the world hated her.

Her brothers and Castiel stood over her, their reactions mixed. "This would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic," Sam said. "I don't understand," Cas said, which pretty much went without saying. Dean, thoroughly annoyed, turned to Castiel. "Cas, help me out buddy."

"How do you mean?" Cas asked, his frown deepening. On the ground, Alex was trying to stand up, but rolled over onto her side, mumbling incoherently, then asking, "_where are we_?"

"Cas, just lay her out!" Dean said, getting impatient. "Do your angel magic and put her to sleep so I don't have to put up with this crap! Cuz trust me, it'll go on all night."

"I'm not sure—" Cas started.

Dean was hauling Alex to her feet. "Let me go, let me go, I'm dot nrunk," Alex slurred, pitching wildly in Dean's arms. He was glaring at Castiel, and jerked his head toward Alex. "_Anytime _now, Cas! Just do it!" Castiel hesitated, then touched two fingers to her forehead, and she went slack in Dean's arms.

"_Thank_ you," Dean said, to which Cas just gave him a grudging look.

"We'll hear about this in the morning," Sam said, sounding like he was already dreading it. "_If_ she can remember a damn thing," Dean pointed out. "_True_," Sam said, seeming to be encouraged by the idea.

Heaving a huge sigh, Dean nodded toward the Impala, which was back near the fire. "Help me shove her into the back seat."

Dean hooked his arms under Alex's armpits, and Sam got her feet. "Hey, Cas—" Dean turned to his left, where Castiel had been, but saw that the angel was gone. "What the hell, man? Where'd he go?"

"Who knows," Sam said as they started toward the car. "Great," Dean muttered sarcastically.

"You know, last time she got this wasted was when you died, Dean," Sam said, walking backwards and watching over his shoulder as they carried Alex's unconscious form.

"Yeah, well, I get why she's upset," Dean said. "But, I mean, really? Absinthe? I thought we all agreed she never needed to drink that crap again." He shook his head, aggravated. "That's just what I needed to end today with… Alex making this whole thing about herself."

They reached the car, Sam balancing Alex's feet awkwardly on his knee with one hand as he pried the car door open. He threw her legs onto the seat. "I don't think that's fair, Dean. I mean, we're all pretty upset about Adam, Dad… the whole nine."

Dean shoved the rest of her awkwardly into the back as Sam helped. "My point exactly. Why does _she_ get to freak out about it on such a spectacularly insane level?"

They stood back. "Because, I dunno. Like you said to me earlier… I'm a lot like Dad, which is why we butted heads so much. You wanted to be like Dad, and Alex… she went back and forth, but mostly set herself up for disappointment with Dad. And Dad knew it." Sam looked pensive. "He knew how he let her down, how much he broke her heart. And he just held her further away for it." Sam had Dean's attention. "So this, about Adam, Dad's secret life… I know it's eating at her."

Dean looked mildly chastened, and covered it up with an impatient nod. "Yeah, well. Me too, Sammy." Dean held out his hand and made a 'give it here' motion. "Now give me that flask."

Sam looked at Dean with mild suspicion. "To dump it out, right?"

Dean gave him a look that seemed to say 'really?'

"Don't be an idiot," Dean said, then when Sam gave him a look, he threw his hands up in the air. "_Yes_, to dump it out!"

Sam handed it over, and Dean turned it upside down, the green liquid pouring out onto the cold ground. Sam turned around to look down at his twin sister, who looked kind of like a rag doll, the way she had been haphazardly shoved into the back seat. Her dark hair was strewn across her face, some of it stuck in her half-open mouth.

Without thinking, Sam brushed Alex's crazy hair back from her face, smiling down at her fondly. Despite everything that had happened the past year, that was Alex and there was no one else in the world who could replace her. Nothing could change the fact that he loved her, would die for her. Hell, he felt the same about Dean. Sam's hand hovered near her face and his smile faded. He pulled his hand away, troubled.

The past few days, with Adam had been particularly hard on his brother and sister. Unlike Dean and Alex, Sam had never idolized Dad like that. He'd never invested all his hopes and dreams in the man. Maybe that's why he was so okay with all of it. He didn't feel as torn up inside as Alex and Dean obviously did. He closed the door of the Impala firmly, shoved his hands into his pockets, and walked around the car to the passenger side. He only wished he knew how to tell his brother and sister about the demon blood. Even if he knew _how_ to tell them, he was reminded that they would never understand or accept it. That was too much to hope for. And there were darker things too, inside. Things he would never tell anyone.

He checked his phone furtively before getting into the car. No missed calls, no texts. He was beginning to feel desperate. He needed more demon blood, and he knew it. Knew it, and hated it. Where the hell was Ruby, and why wouldn't she answer his calls?

* * *

Alex woke up and the instant her eyes cracked opened, she squeezed them shut, groaning. Her head was killing her. Her stomach was churning in nausea. Her mouth was dry, her vision was weird. She opened her eyes again, sore all over. She looked down. Her shoes were still on and everything. She tried to remember what happened last night, but couldn't quite make her brain work the way she wanted it to. She groggily swung her legs over the side of the bed and with some effort, got up and shuffled toward the motel bathroom, her stomach pitching, threatening to empty itself any second. The door was open, and Sam stood there, clutching the sink rigidly with both hands, his head down. She momentarily forgot herself.

"Sam? You okay?" Alex asked, and he shot up, turned around, his expression strange. Recovering, he attempted a smile. "Yeah, yeah, just, uh, feeling kinda sick." He gave her a look. "Are_ you_ okay?"

She was grimacing. "How much did I drink last night?"

Sam's face softened with a crooked smile as he chuckled. "I don't know if it was _how much_ or if it was _what _you drank."

Alex folded her hands over her stomach, queasy. "Never again," she vowed flatly.

"Do you remember anything?" Sam asked, looking at her intently.

Alex's eyes went off to the side and she thought hard, squinting. "That would be a negative."

Sam chuckled. "Well, maybe that's for the best." Alex groaned, pretty sure he meant she had done some embarrassing stuff. Awesome.

"Where's Dean?" She asked.

"Asleep on the bed." Sam nodded back from where she'd come.

"Oh… didn't see him there."

As if on cue, Dean opened his eyes, and rolled out of bed groggily. Laying eyes on them, he stood up. "Hey, Thing One and Thing Two," he said, his voice scratchy from just waking up. "Cas just came to me in la la land. Said he has something important to tell us."

"Wait, what?" Sam asked, watching as Dean grabbed up his keys.

"I dunno, but it seemed really important," Dean replied, shoving his feet into his shoes. "He wouldn't say what, just gave me an address. Let's go."

"_Now_?" Alex asked pitifully. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and die, or at least sleep until she didn't feel so sick.

"Yeah, now," Dean said, shrugging on his jacket and giving her a look. "We'll get some aspirin and coffee into you and you'll be good as new. Now, come on."

* * *

**A Few Hours Later**

Jimmy Novak shamelessly shoved another burger into his mouth, ravenous. The three Winchesters were watching him with odd expressions. "When's the last time you ate?" Dean asked, and Jimmy shook his head. "I don't know. Months." He took another huge bite and made appreciative sounds, thoroughly enjoying the fast food. He had forgotten how amazing the simple pleasure of food was. Alex stared at him oddly, watching the man who looked like Cas—but wasn't—devour a hamburger.

"What the hell happened back there?" Sam asked, interrupting Jimmy's concentration. "It looked like an angel battle royale."

Jimmy thought back—all he remembered was waking up, not knowing where he was, with the three Winchesters in his face. He had been as surprised as them to find the place blown to smithereens. He shook his head and shrugged. "All I remember is a flash of light and I, uh . . . I woke up and I was just, you know, like, me again."

"So, what? Cas just ditched out of your meat suit?" Dean asked. He sounded less than enthused.

"I really don't know," Jimmy said. He just wanted to eat, not remember all the craziness of having an angel inside his mind, body, and soul.

"You remember anything about being possessed? Anything at all?" Alex asked. He looked at her. She hadn't spoken much since they found him, but she had been giving him enough weird stares to last a lifetime. "Yeah, bits and pieces," he said. Many of those bits and pieces actually starred _her_. He watched her out of the corner of his eye for a minute.

"Cas said he wanted to tell us something," Sam said. "Please tell me you remember that." Jimmy shook his head. "No, sorry."

The Winchesters looked at each other with terse expressions, looking fed up and frustrated. Dean stood up. "Okay, listen. Finish up, Jimmy. Sam, I need to talk to you."

Alex watched her brothers go, her expression suggesting she didn't want to be left out of the family conversation. She sighed heavily and rubbed her forehead with a grimace. She settled back into her chair, looking resigned, and grabbed a bottle of pain killers out of the bag that was hanging off her chair. She took several and then fixed her eyes on him. She looked a lot like Dean in that moment, the way she was scrutinizing him. "So you really don't remember _anything_?"

He looked at her over his burger. "Not really. Like I said, bits and pieces, weird snippets and stuff. You're one of Castiel's favorites. I know that much. He spent a lot of time watching over you," he took another huge bite, and Alex looked away, probably kind of grossed out by the way he was pigging out. He just chewed, looking at Alex with a mix of curiosity and observance. Castiel had cataloged everything about Alex meticulously, and Jimmy wasn't sure why.

Alex was built tall and slender, sort of petite even though she was obviously strong. She was a little shorter than Jimmy. She had bright hazel eyes that he had seen flash in anger at him (well, at Castiel), as well as look at him in a way he wasn't quite sure how to describe. She had full lips, a strong jaw, the lightest smattering of freckles across her nose. She had an expressive way about her face, similar to Sam. Her voice was a little raspy and low for a girl, except when she got mad—then it got high and went all over the place. Jimmy remembered really odd things, glimpses of Alex doing everyday things through Castiel's eyes… doing laundry, jogging, arguing with her brothers, picking the meatballs out of her spaghetti and the pepperoni off her pizza, absently rubbing the ends of her hair between her fingers, chewing on the inside of her mouth without realizing it when she was in deep thought.

Jimmy wasn't sure why all that stuff had stuck with him, but it made him a little uncomfortable because it seemed sort of... personal or intimate almost. Those scenes and memories didn't belong to him, but to Castiel. All of those very disconnected images must have had something to do with Castiel's guardianship duties for her, he figured. Also, maybe with Castiel's curiosity. He might not have remembered much, but he remembered how enamored Castiel was with humanity in general. How interested he was in people and their habits. However, Alex and Dean were, for some reason or another, Castiel's favorites. Jimmy was sure of that much. But Alex much more so. She had finally looked back at him, and Jimmy took another huge bite. "You know, I gotta say, the guy's mind was, like, a constant tug of war. Back and forth, back and forth. It's good to be by myself in here again. I was about to go insane." He grinned at her and reached for his cup and it spilled over. They both jumped up, trying to avoid being splashed.

"Aw, crap," he said, brushing himself off, then yanking his tie off and jacket, too, already unbuttoning his now-stained shirt. "Can I borrow one of Sam or Dean's shirts?" he asked, pulling off his shirt completely. Alex was staring. Underneath the frumpy suit and trench coat, Castiel, _no_, Jimmy, was kind of, no, not kind of, _extremely_ fit and toned—she took in the strong arms and shoulders, the defined abs, the pleasing angle of his tapered hip bones... the room seemed extremely hot all of the sudden. She tore her eyes away, flustered. "Yeah, uh, there… Dean's bag. Take whatever you want."

He went to the bed where Dean's duffel sat, and dug through the bag. Alex watched out of the corner of her eye, unable to help herself. His back was defined and the dim light in the room created soft, dark shadows in all the dips and curves of his muscles. On his right shoulder blade, there was a large tattoo of a simple, stylized cross. She was surprised to see that there, actually. As he turned around he caught her eye, seeming to know she'd been eyeing it. "College," he said, pulling a new shirt on and buttoning it up. "Regretted getting it ever since."

Alex wet her lips as Jimmy fastened the cuffs of the button down. "So, uh, you mentioned that you had a wife and daughter?" She asked, needing there to be some sound in the very loud silence.

He paused. "Yeah. And I've been gone for almost a year." He looked conflicted and slightly afraid. "I need to see them again. I... I miss them terribly." There was a hesitation there, a nervousness. She understood. What if he went back and then his family was gone, or had moved on? She hadn't really thought about it before, that the body Castiel had used was a person, a man who had lived a different life before responding to a heavenly calling. There was a strange, deep sadness inside of her at the thought.

Alex watched the man who she had come to know as Castiel wipe spilled soda off the little motel table. Where the hell had Cas gone? She didn't like this. Not one bit. After getting some coffee and painkillers into her system, she had started to remember what happened last night. It was still kind of fuzzy, but she remembered Castiel. How he'd been there, and had left no clue that he was leaving, or ditching his vessel. He's been normal, from what she remembered. She even thought she remembered him attempting sarcasm, or humor. Attempting being the operative word. She smiled to herself, just a little, but it quickly faded. How could he be _gone_ just like that?

She glanced at Jimmy again. He looked just like Cas, but it wasn't him. His mannerisms, his voice, the way he stood, the way he walked… everything was different. It made her feel like she'd lost something. And that feeling was the worst thing in the world.

A few minutes later, Sam and Dean would come back in and announce Jimmy couldn't go home, couldn't leave, that the demons would be after him. Jimmy wouldn't like it, but under Dean's threats, he'd reluctantly agree and go to bed, with Alex taking first watch. She'd sit in a chair, staring at him as he slept, pondering how strange a twist of fate this was. And in the softest whisper in the dead of the night, she'd look up heavenward and ask Cas where he'd gone. She would get no reply.

* * *

They woke up in the morning to find Jimmy gone under Sam's watch. They hit the road immediately, hoping to beat him home—the demons were bound to be after them, and he was an idiot for going off without any help.

They drove in mostly tense silence, until Anna appeared in the car, startling them all, especially Alex, who Anna materialized next to. She told them Cas had been dragged back to heaven, that he had pissed off the angels, but she gave no explanation for why. A new, terrifying through came to Alex when Anna told them that. What if Cas never came back at all? What if this were her fault somehow? She remembered his words to her at Sandover. That what he'd done for her had cost him.

* * *

The gunshot rang out in the abandoned warehouse, the bullet hitting Jimmy Novak in the stomach. With a cry of pain, he sank to his knees, then fell sideways. His wife, Amelia, smiled slightly at him, the demon who was possessing her obviously relishing the look of shock and betrayal on his face.

Dean, Sam, and Alex watched helplessly, restrained by four demons. They could only stare as the man who looked like Castiel laid dying. This had been a bad idea from the start, leaving Jimmy's wife and daughter by themselves. Of course the demons would use them to try to get to Jimmy—and the Winchesters all knew they were to blame for it, too.

Amelia turned to one of her demon henchmen. "Now, waste Little Orphan Annie." She said, and turned and left the room, as one of her goon's stepped forward to obey. At the further end of the warehouse, Jimmy's eleven-year-old daughter was tied in a chair, helpless as the demon approached her. "Dean, we need to _do something_!" Alex whispered in rising alarm.

"Cas will show, trust me!" he hissed back. Alex wasn't so sure she wanted to bet a little kid's life on it. After all, if there was one thing Castiel was, it was unpredictable. Alex struggled against the demon who held her, her jaw clenched. Sam had tried to exorcise one of the demons earlier, one who had attacked Amelia before she'd been possessed. But he hadn't been able to at all. It made no sense, one week he could kill Alastair, the next he couldn't even exorcise a grunt demon.

The Winchesters watched in trepidation as the male demon advanced on Claire's tiny form, a pipe in his hands. He got close to her, swung the pipe, but she suddenly looked up, stopped the pipe with her bare hands. Her ropes had fallen away. She pressed a hand to the demon's head, her expression fierce and unyielding—and that's when Alex recognized Castiel. He had possessed the girl. On either side of her, Sam and Dean were seizing the opportunity to attack the demons who held them, but the one who held Alex, a tall, lanky man, grabbed her tighter. He'd crossed her wrists behind her back, his grip bruising. "Don't even try it, girly," he said, to which she shook her head, chuckled a little bit even. So typical. Demons were so stupid. Using his tight grip against him, she yanked herself forward and down with all of her strength and speed, driving her left shoulder down towards the ground. The demon, without a chance to react, found himself flipping forward over her shoulder and let go, trying to catch himself. Free from his grip, Alex stumbled back. In front of her, the little blonde girl, Castiel had grabbed the demon and pressed a hand to his head. Bright light shone out of the demon's mouth and eyes, and then he fell over, dead.

Not sure what to think, Alex just tilted her head to the side, trying to recognize Castiel in the little girl's body. Coming to stand beside her, Dean was staring at something else. Alex and Castiel followed the gaze. Her heart felt as if it might stop. Sam was crouched over a demon. His mouth, teeth, and lower face were covered in the demon's blood, and he was staring at them wildly. He didn't look recognizable, just ruthless and crazed. He turned around and stabbed Ruby's knife into the demon, then stood and faced them. Alex felt herself take a tiny step back, suddenly terrified of her twin brother. Blood dripped off his chin to the ground.

He held up his hand, and Dean and Alex both flinched, then realized he was exorcising Amelia's demon, who had slipped up behind them, unnoticed. Black smoke billowed out of her and around her, dissipating as she coughed, and Sam looked strong, able, confident. Dean and Alex looked at each other in total dread, in total understanding. It made sense now. It made sense.

Alex heard a cry of pain from somewhere else in the large warehouse, and swore under her breath—_Jimmy_. She ran to the man, who ho was bleeding profusely. "I'm dying," he groaned as she lifted him up a little, supported him into an upright position. "Just keep the pressure here," she said, pressing her hand down over his against the gunshot wound. He let out a cry of agony and looked into her eyes, his expression pained. His free hand, large and warm, came against hers, gripping it fiercely. His teeth were gritted, and she could see he'd been coughing up blood. "I know why," he said, agonized, urgent. "I know why."

"Why _what_?" Alex asked in alarm, but just then, Castiel, in Claire's body, arrived at their side. Holding Jimmy's eyes with hers, the girl spoke. "Of course we keep our promises. Of course you have our gratitude. You served us well. Your work is done. It's time to go home now. Your real home. You'll rest forever in the fields of the Lord. Rest now, Jimmy."

Alex looked at Claire, no, _Castiel_, incredulous. "No," Jimmy protested. "Claire?" He groaned in pain. "She's with me now," Castiel said. "She's chosen. It's in her blood, as it was in yours."

"_Please_, Castiel," Jimmy panted. "Me, just take me. Take me, please." He was almost in tears. "Come on, Cas," Alex begged quietly. "Save him!" Claire's eyes met hers, narrowed just a little, then looked away, back at Jimmy. "I want make sure you understand. You won't die or age. If this last year was painful for you, picture a hundred, a thousand more like it."

"It doesn't matter!" Jimmy replied immediately, grabbing the angel clumsily, angrily, desperately. "You take me. Just take _me_."

There was slight hesitation. And then a nod. "As you wish," Castiel said, and touched Jimmy's face. A bright light shone there, and Alex squinted, looking away. And suddenly, Claire was Claire again, which meant… Alex looked down. In her arms, no longer panting or writhing was Castiel. He blinked a couple times and stood up, not even looking at her. She was covered in his blood, and stared after him, in confused loss. Amelia was running past Castiel to Claire, embracing her daughter tightly.

"Cas, where are you going?" Alex asked, standing slowly as Castiel walked past Dean without a glance.

Castiel rounded on them slowly, his expression more emotionless than she could ever remember seeing it. He didn't reply. "And what were you gonna tell me?" Dean prompted, earning a glance from Cas.

"I learned my lesson while I was away, Dean," he said, and the sound of his voice, returned to familiar deep, gravelly tones, seemed to still the room itself. "I serve Heaven, I don't serve man, and I certainly don't serve you." His eyes darted to Alex and his jaw clenched, his eyes darkened. "Any of you."

And he turned and walked away, leaving a shellshocked bunch of people behind. Claire's quiet sobs echoed in the large expanse of the warehouse, and Alex turned, looking at Dean questioningly, who shook his head just slightly, as if to tell her 'not now.' Sam was wiping the blood off his face with the sleeve of his jacket. Amelia and Claire hadn't noticed the entire thing.

"He'll never be back, will he?" Amelia asked Sam, her voice shaking. Her arm was around Claire, who was crying quietly.

"I'm… I'm not sure," Sam said honestly. "Let's just get out of here, huh?"

Amelia and Claire were more than ready to comply, and Sam began to lead them out. Dean and Alex followed, too, but slowed down letting Sam and the girls get out of earshot. Alex looked at her brother and waited—she could tell by instinct that he was far, far more shaken up than he was letting on. She had never seen his expression so deadly, so horrified. And truthfully, that's how she felt, too. "I'm stopping us at a gas station after we leave here," he said in hushed and hurried tones. "You go to the bathroom, _call Bobby_. Tell him to call us and tell us to come there, to make up some reason—_I don't care what_—for us to hightail it over. And we'll put Sam in the panic room until we figure out what the hell is going on with him."

Alex nodded, feeling ill. "Okay."

"Do _not_ let Sam know anything is up. We can't let him get away. He has to suspect _nothing._"

It was with a sadness her heart had never felt before that she nodded her understanding. She felt her eyes sting with tears, and Dean held up a commanding, angry finger. "_No, _Alex, no. Later. Later, you and I will do that crap. Right now, everything's normal, you understand?"

Alex cleared her throat and forced herself to go blank. "Yeah. Got it."

* * *

They drove through a rainstorm in silence. In the back seat, Alex could feel the tension building, but refused to be the one to break the silence, to broach the subject. When she'd gone into the gas station bathroom to call Bobby, she had almost lost it completely. She wasn't sure if she could actually keep it together when the time came.

And there wasn't just Sam drinking the demon's blood. There was another blood entirely that wouldn't let her forget. She had Castiel's blood under his fingernails, on her shirt. She hadn't been able to wash it all away. And every time she glanced down and saw it, she again replayed the moment in her mind. Where Cas had turned and looked at them with such heartlessness. With such utter lack of anything. She didn't understand.

In the front seat, Sam drew in a deep breath and cleared his throat. "All right, let's hear it," Sam said, and Alex glanced up. Here went nothing.

"Hear what?" Dean asked, sounding completely normal.

"Drop the bomb, man," Sam said. "You saw what I did. Come on, stop the car, take a swing."

"I'm not gonna take a swing," Dean replied evenly.

Alex could see Sam's expression scrunch in puzzled suspicion, then he turned and looked at her. "Alex? You don't wanna scream my head off, or chew me out?"

Under his questioning gaze, she wanted to squirm. But she shrugged. "What can I say, Sam. It explains a hell of a lot."

Sam scoffed, looking at Dean again, then Alex, then Dean, totally aghast. "Come on! You guys aren't gonna give me hell about this?"

"I think we're both too tired, Sam," Alex said, which was true. "Too tired and too sad to be angry."

"Okay, well, at least let me explain myself," Sam said, but Dean shook his head. "Don't. I don't care."

"_You don't care_?" Sam echoed in disbelief.

"What do you want me to say, that I'm disappointed? Yeah, I am. But, mostly, I'm just tired, man. I'm done. I am just done." Alex heard his voice waver just slightly.

In total disbelief, Sam just stared at Dean. Then his cell phone rang. Alex's eyes jumped up, her pulse picked up. "Hey, Bobby," Sam said.

And so, the trap would be set. She never thought, in a thousand years, that they would be luring her big brother like an animal. Like a monster.

* * *

**Later That Night**

"Well, thanks for shaking a tail," Bobby said, leading the Winchesters toward the panic room. "You got it," Dean said. He still sounded normal. Alex was saying as little as possible.

"Go on inside," Bobby said, motioning for them to go inside, letting Sam take the lead. "I wanna show you something."

Alex's blood thundered in her ears as Sam, without any hesitation or suspicion, stepped inside. Clueless. "So, what's the big demon problem?" he turned to them. His expression was too pleasant, too trusting. Alex thought she felt her heart literally break as Bobby replied, "_You_ are."

Sam's expression wavered. "This is for your own good," Bobby said, and shut the door with a loud bang.

"Guys? Hey, hey. What's… what are you doing?" his voice was quickly becoming panicked. Bobby closed and latched the window. "This isn't funny. Guys! Hey! _GUYS!_"

The second the door shut and latched closed, Alex's careful guise of calm indifference was gone, and she leaned against the wall of the panic room, one hand on either side of her head, painful tears falling silently as her shoulders shook. Sam's shouts echoed loudly on the other side of the wall. She felt Dean pull her away and into his arms, tightly. "Come on kids," Bobby said gently. "It's best if we put some space between us and him for right now."

They went upstairs, Dean pulling Alex along by her forearm. She could barely walk. At the top of the stairs, Alex turned to Dean, stricken, while Bobby, ever the intuitive, left them alone. "_How did this happen?" _Alex asked through tears. "How did we let this happen? Who _is that_ in there? What _happened_ to Sam?"

Dean's expression was pained, guilty. He didn't know anything more than she did. "I… I don't know."

"How didn't we _see _this, Dean?" Alex asked, looking for him to answers, desperate for him to set her at ease in any small way. He was barely able to look at her. His voice was soft and confused. "What, that he was _sucking demon blood_? I mean, call me crazy but that's not the first conclusion you'd logically jump to." He looked down, putting his face in his hand. "Dammit. I didn't see this coming. _I didn't see this coming_."

Alex looked down the stairs, into the darkness. Sam's shouts were echoing loudly, and full of panic and confusion. "Dean. He'll never forgive us for this."

Dean looked at her, his expression unreadable. "I don't know if _I_ can ever forgive _him_."

* * *

_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk._ Alex threw one last knife, using all the pent up anger and frustration she was holding inside. _Thunk_. It pummeled into the side of the car easily, and she went and yanked them out, the sound of scraping hurting her ears. She hadn't even thought to see if it were a junker or not, and had left about twenty holes in it in the past ten minutes. She'd just seen something to throw knives at in the salvage yard, and started throwing. Hopefully Bobby wouldn't be too pissed.

Now she was out of steam, and clunked the knives down on the roof of the car, closing her eyes tiredly. Sam was still shouting himself hoarse, a couple hours after being locked in, and she couldn't be in the house. She didn't know what to do, what to think.

And then there was Cas. The way he had looked at her so rigidly when he left. The cruel, thoughtless words he had lobbed at them. She remembered the other night, when she swore he was a different person altogether, listening to her drunken rants. What had happened? Why was he suddenly a stranger again? She wanted to believe it was a misunderstanding. Or a mistake. She looked up into the night sky, breathing out and watching her breath dissipate in a little cloud. She waited a very long moment, not sure if she wanted to do this or not. In the end, she decided she did. "Cas? Are you there?"

There was a soft sound behind her, and she turned. There he stood, looking at her without any sort of emotion whatsoever. "What is it, Alex?" He looked to his left and right, assessing the location. "What do you need?"

"To talk to you," she said, coming closer to him. Searching for any sign that he was in there. His expression didn't change. He was distant and rigid. "If you're not in danger, and need nothing substantial from me, I have no business being here."

He turned, as if to walk away. "Wait! Cas!" Alex caught him by the shoulder. Even though he had the strength to rip her in half, he stayed, meeting her gaze grudgingly after glancing at her hand almost disdainfully. "Why—why are you being like this?" she asked, completely confused. "I thought we were… I dunno, friends."

Castiel's eyes narrowed. "I have no need of friendship. Not your's, not Dean's, not anyone's."

Alex was unable to hide her wounded expression or tone. "This isn't you, Cas. What did they do to you up there? Why did you leave your vessel to begin with?"

"None of this is any of your _concern_," he said with dark impatience.

"It _is_," Alex replied bravely, trying to make him see. Deciding to take a chance. "Because... I care. About you." His eyes flicked to hers, but his expression gave away nothing. Alex looked away, a wan expression on her face as she began to suspect the worst. "Probably shouldn't. But I still do."

"Your care is wasted on me," Castiel said without a flicker of emotion or empathy. "Now let me go, Alex."

Alex scowled at him. "Or what? You gonna throw me across the yard? Knock me out? Handcuff me to to a wall?" He stared at her unflinchingly for a long few seconds, and Alex just stared back, not backing down.

He took his hand and brushed her aside easily, walking a few paces ahead of her, stopping, and turning his head just slightly so that she could see his profile. "The relationship you and I had is over. I'm not your friend. I am your protector. That's all."

Silence.

"That's it? Just like that?" Alex shook her head, at a loss. "I don't understand," she said softly. "I thought…" she trailed off.

If she could have seen his face, she would have seen him close his eyes wearily, a pained expression on his face. But then he would open his eyes, steeling himself and wiping all emotion from his face and voice. "You thought wrong," he told her without any empathy. And then he was gone.

Alex stared at the spot where he had been, deeply wounded and sorry she had even called him there at all. Sorry that she had thought he would listen to her. She was once again reminded why she didn't allow people into her life. Because in the end, they all disappointed her, hurt her, or left her. Sometimes, all three. She wanted to be angry and bitter about Castiel, but instead all she could feel was hurt. Deeply, painfully, hurt. She had trusted him and let him in. More than she should have. And this was what she had to show for it. Absolutely nothing.

* * *

Castiel stood on a boat loading dock somewhere in New Jersey, leaned over the railing, staring down into the water. Trying not to reflect on the conversation he'd just had. Trying to ignore the way his pulse had picked up, the uneasy, upset feeling in his stomach. Trying to push away the image of Alex's expression as he coldly told her the things he had. Trying to stop wondering why he mattered that much to her at all.

His brethren in Heaven had given him a final warning. His affections and involvement with the Winchesters had to end, or he would be punished severely. They told him he was choosing sides. They told him he was failing. They told him he was becoming weak and faithless. They told him this was his final chance. And Castiel had no choice but to obey. He _wanted_ to obey. He _wanted_ to be a faithful servant of the Lord. So why did this feel wrong? Why did he have doubt after doubt? And why, when he saw the hurt in Alex's eyes—hurt caused by him—why did he feel so sick, so tortured?

He thought of the soft way she sighed, the way her brow furrowed in thought, the way her eyelashes fanned out darkly when she looked down. He thought of the fiery glares she'd shot at him in anger, the eye rolls, the crossed arms. He thought of the sound of her laugh, which he hadn't heard enough times. He thought of her face, her eyes, the sound of her voice. He wanted to erase and burn it all away so that he could be free of the inexplicable hold she had over him. But at the same time, the thought of forgetting those things, discarding them, was abominable. Like throwing away treasure.

Castiel shook himself. He knew the right thing to do was to cut ties with her, and her brothers. That's what the celestial courts had commanded. Castiel knew that he had to comply, or he would lose everything he was, his entire existence. There would be no second chances for him.

He looked over the dark, shimmering water that laid before him, lit by moonlight. He felt immense guilt—but not where Heaven was concerned. Where the Winchesters were concerned. And that was what worried him. He didn't know how to stop caring. And he wasn't sure if he truly wanted to.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ Yay, another chapter! Sorry about the glossing over some episode content in the middle of the chapter, but I felt it was more important to focus on the emotional aspects of this chapter. Sheesh and I keep feeling like every new chapter I write is my new favorite, but this one I especially love because of the internal struggles of both Alex and Cas, and the interactions between the siblings. I loved writing Alex, trying to process so much pain and shock and loss all at once, and Cas's internal struggle coming to such a head… his anguish was so palatable in the TV show. He KNEW he wanted to be a friend to the Winchesters, not just an apathetic, robotic servant of heaven.. sigh, he is such an amazing character, isn't he? No wonder we all love him like we do!  
_

_I went through and titled all the chapters this week, as well as fixed a few typos. As always, let me know if you see a typo and I'll DESTROY ITS VERY EXISTENCE! Ahem. _

_Anyway, I am hoping to have the next chapter out late next week, so stay tuned and leave a review in the meantime :) you guys ROCK. Oh, and feel free to ask questions in your reviews, as I always PM back. _


	17. Two Roads Diverged

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 17 / Two Roads Diverged

"_So light the fire, walk away. There's nothing left to say."  
_- Bullet for My Valentine

* * *

Sam stared up at the ceiling fan surrounded by the familiar design of a devil's trap. He had lost track of the hours and days. No one answered when he called. He paced the room, banged on the walls, gave up and sat in the corner and wept quietly, ashamed. Got cagey, got depressed, looked for something to hurt himself with. Started the process all over again, with renewed fervor. Gave up again, collapsing onto the cot. He knew he was in bad shape. He was beginning to see things and people. Alastair, his mom, himself when he was fourteen. He was so confused and tired, and all he could think about was getting some demon blood, quenching the maddening thirst that pervasively controlled his entire body and mind. Freeing himself from this hell he'd built in himself.

He heard a soft sound beside him, and sat quickly.

"Alex! How did you get in here?" he asked in trepidation. She stood at the edge of the room, her face obscured by strange shadows. Her arms were crossed. He could literally _feel _the disdain emanating off of her. She ignored his question. "Unbelievable. _Look at you_, Sam. So far from what you're supposed to be." She came closer, looking at him in clear disgust. "Not even_ human_ anymore, are you?"

"I'm… I'm still human…" he protested weakly, tiredly. "I'm still me. _Please_, believe me. You've got to help me."

She just smirked, rolled her eyes, started to circle him, watching him hawkishly. "You know, I think you're past help. You disgust me, the dark things that crawl around inside you... the things you keep secret from me..." Sam flinched away from her, horrified. "But, it's okay, Sammy. Me and Dean? We've got this. We don't need you, especially not now." She stopped and leaned forward, gripping him by his shoulders with crushing force. Her fingernails were like spikes, digging in painfully and he flinched, whimpered, cowered. "_You're_ the family curse, Sam," she hissed. "It's been you all along, dragging us down, polluting the air we breathed..." her head tilted to the side, and a strange, condescending smile on her lips. "You're just some unholy, blood sucking, demon screwing little bastard."

Sam felt like he had been struck. "No, Alex," he protested, tears in his eyes. "It wasn't like that, I just, I needed—" she slapped him across the face, her expression like stone. It stung so badly.

"_Shut up_. I'm tired of listening to your _shit_," she said, and walked off. He closed his eyes, miserably listened to the sound of her footsteps echoing. And when he opened his eyes, he saw that someone else was there now. A girl, around age fourteen. She had a plain, open face, wide eyes, full lips. Two messy braids, the faded striped shirt and an old jean jacket... "Alex… Lexie…" he said, recognizing her. His twin sister, when she was a kid. She just stared at him, her huge eyes full of hurt, betrayal, disappointment. The other Alex, the older one, came to the younger one, put her arm around the girl protectively. "Don't. You hurt her. You disappointed her. You let her down. She doesn't want you to talk to her." Alex's voice lowered a little bit. "She knows how dark you are inside."

Sam choked on his words, standing up, desperate for his fourteen-year-old sister to stop looking at him like that. She only turned away, hid her face from him. Older Alex just looked at Sam with a superior expression, as if to say, 'see?'

Sam was getting desperate, breathless, riled up. "Alex, please! _Help me_! Stop just looking at me like I'm a freak show and _do something_!" He was grasping at straws. "If you can just, just convince Dean… I just need some time, some _help_… if you guys… can just _help me_! Why won't you _help me?!_"

Alex smiled at him too cheerily, laughed a little, put a hand on her hip. "You know what, _Sammy_? It's kinda cute. You think we actually still love you. Think we actually want to save you. Ah Sam. You sick, crawling little excuse for a man. You're not a _man_." She came forward, her face inches from his. Her voice lowering into a harsh whisper. "You're a monster." The words were like another slap to the face. "A _monster_."

"No!" He shouted in rage, lunging for her. "I am _not_ a _MONSTER_!"

Outside the panic room, peeking in through the latch, Alex couldn't watch any more when Sam ran into the wall, his arms and hands swinging around wildly, as if he were fighting and grappling with someone. He had totally lost it. Alex shut the latch quietly and shuffled through the basement, too numb to know how she should react. Feeling like she'd failed Sam somehow. It never should have gotten to this point.

Upstairs in the study, Dean was absently witting a piece of wood with a hunting knife. Bobby was nowhere to be seen. "Same?" Dean asked her tersely, not looking at her as she leaned against the door frame beside him, arms crossed.

"Worse." She said, and let out a heavy breath, shut her eyes for a second. When she opened her eyes again, Dean had stopped whittling and was staring ahead of himself unseeingly. "What are we gonna do, Dean?" She asked. "This is happening at the worst time possible."

A humorless smile turned his mouth upward as he returned his attention to his knife and shaved more wood off the block in his hand. "You're telling me."

Alex tried not to get angry at his nonchalance, but she was. She was angry, and _scared_. She came to stand in front of him, demanding his attention. "He might not live through this, Dean. You get that, right?"

He met her eyes a little hostilely. "Yeah. I _get_ that." He returned to the work of his hands, ignoring her.

Not exactly thrilled with his attitude, Alex took a second, biting the inside of her mouth. "Listen. I've been thinking. Maybe I should go get some demon blood."

Dean looked at her sharply, stilled. "What the hell for?"

"You _know_ what for," she said. "Cold turkey doesn't seem to be doing Sammy that much good. I mean, with some drugs, if you stop using, you die from withdrawal. What if that happens here? I just think, maybe, we can just give him some, work him off of it slowly—"

Dean had stood up, tossed the wood and knife aside. He was clearly enraged she would even think of what she was suggesting. "No. You hear me? _No_! Alex!"

"I want him to_ live_!" Alex protested, almost in a shout, then let the silence hang in disbelief. "And so should you," she said, her voice cracking. "So why_ the hell _do you have a problem with that?"

"You want him to live? The way he is now?" Dean looked beside himself. "Drinking demon blood, palling around with demons, exorcising all that is unholy with his _mind_?"

"Well, no, not like that, but…" she trailed off, realizing what Dean was saying, but she didn't want to believe it. "You're prepared to let him _die_?"

"Yeah, I am, okay?" Dean replied gruffly, his voice rising in defensive anger, in hopelessness. "At least he would die a human!"

Alex was shocked into momentary silence. She was at a complete loss, and her voice betrayed her inner turmoil when she spoke in a soft, stunned tone. "I can't believe you. This is our brother. _Your _brother. This is _Sammy_."

A muscle jumped in his jaw. He didn't yell, he didn't rage, he didn't melt down. He shut his eyes for a second, his expression twisted in pain. He couldn't look at her when he opened his eyes. "I can't let him live like that, Al. I just can't. Like a… like..."

"A monster?" she asked. He just met her gaze, expression unreadable. Alex looked down. She couldn't believe it had come to this. That Sam had done this to himself. That right now, Dean was prepared to let Sam die. There was a tense silence, then Dean set his mouth in a thin line, looking grim. "There might be one other option."

"What?" she asked, desperate for a way out, an escape from this mess. But the answer was not what she wanted to hear.

"The angels."

Alex felt her expression drop, and Dean let our a frustrated huff, getting physically agitated. "Well what else can I do?" He demanded, already knowing she wouldn't agree with that. He paced a few steps in front of her. "I'm backed into a friggin' corner here! What the hell else is left?!"

"I don't know!" she replied, exasperated, matching his elevated volume and emotion. "But we can't trust the angels. I'm not sure about much anymore, but I'm pretty sure about that." She thought of Castiel, and was filled with bitterness.

"I don't like it anymore than you do," Dean said bluntly, "but I'm kind of out of options, in case you hadn't noticed." He looked at her intently, his eyes narrowing as if he'd just seen something. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing." Alex looked at him guardedly. "Just, Cas won't help us. Not like he used to." She thought back to the other night, the way he had been so clearly _done_ with her. She didn't want to, but she felt a pang of despair. "He's changed."

"Everyone's changing around here, for the worst," Dean muttered. They could hear Sam shouting again, a muffled, panicked sound down in the basement. Alex was becoming more upset by the minute. She brushed past Dean, throwing "I'll be outside," over her shoulder.

* * *

**That Night**

Castiel stood in the shadows of Bobby Singer's basement, his hand outstretched, freeing Sam Winchester step by step from the panic room. He broke Sam's bonds, and his stomach clenched. He unlocked the door, and he swallowed deeply. Sam came out, just as predicted. He looked physically drained, sweaty, and sallow. Sam stole up the stairs quietly, his expression showing that he barely believed what was happening.

Castiel went upstairs, watching Sam sneak through the dark house. He followed Sam in silence, invisible. Sam passed through the study, pausing to look at Bobby, who was asleep with his head on the desk. Nearby, Dean and Alex were deeply asleep too, on the tiny couch. Alex slept with her arms crossed, her feet tucked under Dean. Sam continued out of the house, but Castiel remained, looking at the two Winchesters who he had tried so hard in particular not to want to help, not to like. Alex shifted a little, let out a soft sigh, her mouth open slightly. The increasingly familiar feeling of guilt came over him. They wouldn't know how Sam got out. They would probably fight each other about it, worry about Sam, go after him. Was this right? Sam would probably die in this process; in breaking the final seal to release Lucifer. Again, Castiel felt a dizzying sense of negative emotion and conviction flood him; spirit, mind, and body. The small, nagging voice in the back of his mind wouldn't leave him alone. Again, and again, it whispered, _'this is wrong. This is wrong, and you know it.'_

* * *

**A Day and a Half Later**

The Impala pulled up to the Saint Regis hotel, a swanky looking high rise hotel. Not the kind of place they stayed, ever. "There it is," Dean said, nodding toward the white Escalade with huge rims parked nearby. "Yup. Just like I said. He's here. Little bitch thought he could throw me off his trail. Well, I know him better than he thinks." Dean was unbuckling. "I'm gonna go in there and talk some sense into him. I bet you a million bucks Ruby is in there, too. And I'm ganking her once and for all."

Alex unbuckled too, reached for the door handle. "No," Dean said, and Alex froze, confused and frowning. "No what?"

"You wait here. If I'm not back in ten… _then_ you come in." She opened her mouth to argue, not sure why he was being like that, but he held up a hand. "Just, shut it. Okay? This is something I have to do. Trust me. Stay _here_." He hefted the demon blade in his hand, and grimly exited the car.

Unhappy, Alex complied. She kept a watchful, if sullen eye on Dean as he entered the hotel through the grand entrance—a large glass round revolving door. A few minutes passed, in which Alex became increasingly nerve-wracked, staring at the hotel. It had been almost ten minutes, hadn't it? She couldn't wait much longer. This was insane, him going in there by himself—prick. And then, a flash of movement at one of the smaller, side doors caught her attention.

Alex started, seeing a familiar figure walk out, casting furtive glances over her shoulder. Ruby ducked around the corner of the building, and temporarily out of Alex's vision. Already getting out of the car, Alex sprinted toward the corner Ruby had disappeared behind. She peeked around the corner cautiously. Ruby was walking, fast, toward the back of the hotel. The demon hadn't noticed Alex. No Dean or Sam followed, but Alex wasn't pausing to consider why. She was seeing red, and pure, enraged murder was coursing through her veins. That unholy bitch was the one who had done this to Sam and she was as good as dead.

Alex dashed across the maybe thirty feet between her and the unaware demon, her pulse pounding. As she closed in, Ruby heard her, and turned halfway, but not in time. Alex was already there, ruthlessly grabbing Ruby by the hair and smashing her head with brutal force into the brick wall of the hotel, bruising and scraping her own knuckles in the assault. The demon was caught off guard, but not for long at all. Grunting, Ruby grabbed onto Alex. Her grip was like a vice, and she pushed Alex, smashing her shoulder-first into the wall, then bashing Alex in the jaw. Alex was too high on adrenaline to feel the pain—she was already reeling her fist back, returning the favor and punching Ruby in the throat, hard. The demon stumbled back a little, dazed, and using the temporary lull Alex snatched up a loose, fist-sized piece of brick in her hand. She practically roared as she struck Ruby across the face with it, once, twice, three times.

Grabbing at Alex blindly, Ruby managed to get two fistfuls of Alex's shirt and throw her down onto the pavement. There was a loud thud as the girls hit the ground, rolling. Alex still had the brick, and smashed Ruby in the side of the head with it, using the momentum of the scuffle to dominate Ruby and gain the upper hand. Alex straddled her, stared down, out of breath, murder in her eyes. Ruby laughed, showing the blood in her teeth. One of her eyes was already swelling up. "You don't have the knife, _dumbass_, what are you gonna do, beat my face in all day?"

"I don't need a knife, you _bitch_." Alex snarled, dropping the brick and yanking Ruby forward by her shirt, shouting "_exorcizamus te omnis_—" beginning the exorcism chant. Ruby's eyes went wide, and her hands shot up, yanking Alex down by the back of her neck, clapping the other hand across her mouth, trying to silence her, yanking her along into another roll, so that Alex was now the one on the ground with Ruby on top. Alex bit down on one of Ruby's fingers hard, drawing blood and Ruby yowled, letting go for a second. "_Immundus spiritus; omnis satanica—_" Alex continued, and Ruby, eyes going even wider in genuine fear, clamped both of her hands down on Alex's throat with devastating, crushing force, making it impossible for Alex to speak, breathe, or make a sound. Alex could feel more of Ruby's blood from her bleeding finger running down her neck. Struggling for air, Alex weakly grabbed her knife—a regular knife—out of her belt loop, and with desperate, last-ditch effort, stabbed it into the side of Ruby's neck and yanked the blade forward, leaving a huge, gaping wound in Ruby's throat.

Bleeding profusely out of the huge gash in her neck, Ruby stumbled back and stood shakily, her expression horrified, her hand on her neck. "You crazy _bitch_!" she shrieked. Alex opened her mouth to continue the incantation, but nothing came out. Her throat was killing her, and her voice was only a whisper. She stood up, panting, Ruby's blood dripping out of her mouth and down her jaw, her neck. With her clothes ripped, her face and hands scraped up, her dagger glare, her iron-like grip on her knife, she must have looked truly fearful—Ruby was withering under Alex's stare, stepping back a little. She was bleeding from her neck, even though she held a hand against it. There was a gash in her cheek, her eye was swelling, and she had a huge scrape down the other side of her face. She was barely recognizable, and no longer looked sure, in fact, she looked afraid. Alex took a single step toward her… and Ruby turned around and fled, leaving Alex standing there.

She watched Ruby's retreating figure, and thought about giving chase. But without the demon blade and without a voice to exorcise, it was a bad idea. _Dammit_. She stumbled into the hotel, searching for the honeymoon suite, where Dean had said Sam would be. She found the room quickly, a little lightheaded and feeling woozy, but pushing past that.

The door was half open, and there was shattered glass on the floor, the room partition had been ripped in half, various other smashed and broken stuff littered the place. And there, on the floor, by the bed, a sight that would never leave her memories. Dean laying on the ground, with Sam over him, attempting to choke the life out of him. "Sam, stop!" Alex rasped in total horrified shock, and what would have been a shout was a sand-papery whisper. She ran over, trying to pull Sam off of Dean. He was too big, and too heavy. When she grabbed at him, he shoved her away, hard. She staggered backwards, but was already fumbling back forward, grabbing the first thing she could—a fancy blown glass lamp—and smashing it over her twin's head. The shattered glass went flying in all directions, and Sam was standing up, staring her down with absolute hatred. He seemed so much taller than she ever remembered him being, so powerful and dark and his eyes flashed at her darkly, menacingly. She almost didn't recognize him. On the floor, Dean was groaning, wheezing.

"You shouldn't have _done that_, Alex," Sam said, his voice filled with disdain as he bore down on her fast and hard, shocking her completely when he backhanded her ruthlessly across the face, grabbed her by the hair, and threw her down onto the ground with no remorse. She fell face first, her chin colliding with the hard floor with a painful crack. She was stunned, tasting her own blood. With her hands flat against the floor, she could only turn and stare up at Sam in shocked terror, disbelief, breathless pain. Sam's expression changed. He was breathing hard as he looked down at her, hands limp at his sides. Horror flashed over his features, as if he hadn't known what he'd done. "Sam! What—what have you done?" Dean asked, his voice broken. He'd rolled over onto his side, supporting himself on an arm. He was staring at Sam in gaping shock, with horrified wide eyes.

Sam looked back at Dean, and for a moment, his expression was pained, confused, lost. And then, it changed. Grew cold and dark. "You don't know me. You never did. And you never _will_." Sam looked at Alex, his expression chilling, his eyes dark, cruel, cold. She stared up at him in terror as he stood over her. And then wordlessly, he turned, heading for the door. Dean's voice, shaking, stopped him. "You walk out that door, don't you _ever_ come back. You hear me?"

Sam paused, his back to them. "Yeah," he said cynically. Without turning around, he left; the sound of his heavy footsteps against the carpeted hallway fading out. Alex stared after him, not even sure what had just happened. Unable to believe he'd tried to kill Dean, that he'd physically assaulted her. She heard Dean crawling over to her. He was wincing. His face was scraped up, and she could see he was bleeding. But he was just looking at her, stricken with worry. "Lemme see, sweetheart," he said, and she almost lost it then, at the gentle way he touched her chin, her jawline. She couldn't look at him as he examined her face. "You okay?" he asked, and he sounded close to a breakdown. She groaned against the pain, and bitterly spat out a mouthful blood, her heart so very heavy. She was losing it, too, her voice wavering. "_No_. No, I'm not."

* * *

**The Next Day**

Alex laid still in the bedroom, the one she'd stayed in last year when she'd been with Bobby. Listening. She could hear Bobby and Dean arguing. Again. She couldn't be part of it anymore. Bobby had insisted they needed to go after Sam, talk him down. But Bobby hadn't seen what Sam did, he hadn't seen what Sam did. The look in Sam's eye. Alex hadn't slept at all last night. Dean had refused to talk to her, so upset every time he looked at her.

Alex sat up, saw herself in the mirror of the bureau. Who could blame Dean? With a puffy eye, a scraped, violet-bruised chin, a split lip, she looked like a battered woman. _Oh, Sam. How could you? _Her voice was still barely there, a sad little rasping sound, and she had dark bruises all along her neck and throat. She didn't recognize herself. She felt hopeless and defeated.

She wondered how they could ever come back from this. Honestly, she felt that was the end. The end of her, Sam, and Dean. She looked down at her feet and blinked. And suddenly, she was no longer looking at the wood flooring of Bobby's house, but a shining, polished marble floor. She jumped up in shock, and realized she had just jumped out of a chair, not her bed. She looked around, totally confused. She was in a lavishly decorated room, trimmed with gold. The walls were accented with austere paintings, marble statues, crown moulding.

Dean was suddenly there, too, appearing in front of her without warning. His mouth dropped open in confusion. "Hello, Dean. Hello, Alex." In unison, they whirled to see Castiel standing at the other end of the room. "It's almost time," he announced.

"Time for _what_?" Dean asked. But Castiel disappeared. Dean let out a low growl of frustration and marched toward the door, tried to open it—but it wouldn't budge.

A little fearfully, Alex hugged herself. "What did he mean, it's time? And where are we?" Alex rasped faintly.

Dean stopped rattling the door and turned around, looked remorseful. "I gave myself to the angels, okay?" Alex stared at him, speechless. He looked guilty under her gaze. "I thought… I dunno what I thought."

Alex could say nothing. She sat back down and put her head in her hands. This was a nightmare. A _nightmare_. A long, silent moment passed, and suddenly there was a new voice that Alex didn't recognize. "Hello, Dean, you're looking fit!" It was a tall, balding man with an oddly perky smile. Behind him, Castiel stood, looking moody as always. The balding man looked from Dean to Alex. "And, Alexandra, is it? So nice to finally put a face with the name. I, am Zachariah. You might have heard of me?"

Yes. She had, and she immediately felt apprehension. "_Pleasure,_ I'm sure," she said flatly. Next to her, Dean had tensed. Something was going down, but what was it? Behind Zachariah, Castiel came forward toward Alex, and then lightly gripped her by the arm.

"Hey! What—" she protested, even as Dean stepped forward, as if to yank Castiel off of her. But then she and Cas were suddenly in a different room. This one was a soft mauve color, with black gilded furniture and amber accents. "What the hell?" Alex demanded in her strained voice. She sounded like she had laryngitis. "What is going on? Is Dean in danger?"

Cas had let go of her and was standing in front of her, his eyebrows knit together. "No. Of course not. Zachariah merely wants to discuss things with him. Private things."

Alex just glared at him for a second, then looked around the room again. "Where are we? Why are Dean and I here?"

"For your safety. The final seal will be broken soon."

Alex's pulse rocketed upwards in alarm. "Then what the hell are we doing here? We need to stop it!"

"No," Castiel said. "We will not stop it."

Alex stilled at the way he said that. She looked at him in dread. "Why?"

"It has been commanded," Castiel replied. She didn't miss the flicker of doubt there in his expression. "Lucifer will rise."

Alex felt herself go slack-jawed. She wasn't sure whether to be pissed off or terrified. "All this time you've been telling us how much we don't want Lucifer to come to town and now…?" She searched for words. "Now you're making sure he does?" Castiel said nothing. Alex shook her head rapidly. "You're insane. _Insane_, all of you, you _winged freaks!_"

She turned away, so upset, so confused, and wanting nothing more than to just crawl into a hole and die. "I'm sorry you are upset," Castiel's deep voice said from somewhere behind her.

"How _sweet _of you," she retorted in a sad little rasp.

"Try to understand," he said, and she could hear that he had stepped a little closer. "There is a bigger picture here."

She turned, scoffing angrily at him. "You've already tried that line on me before, Cas." His steadfast gaze faltered. "You know, the funny part? You _know_ this is wrong. I _know_ you know this is wrong." She wanted to punch a wall. "I can see it when I look at your _stupid, idiotic face_!"

His eyes only narrowed a little. "You don't know what I think. You cannot see into my mind."

"Yeah and I don't need to," Alex shot back raspily, stalking up to him so that they were close enough that the edges of their sleeves brushed at the wrist. "I see right through your holier-than-thou, angel bullshit." She held his gaze defiantly for a second, then turned away and retreated. She was so over all of this. "I just want to leave here. Take me to Dean."

"Not yet."

She stopped, crossed her arms. "What, are you holding me hostage or something?"

"Of course not."

"Then_ let me leave_."

He said nothing, only came closer to her, his eyes boring into hers, then scanning over her face—the bruises, the swollen eye, the scraped up chin. "Are you in very much pain?"

Alex just gave him a look, mad he changed the subject, annoyed at how clueless he was. "Really, Cas? You have to _ask_? Just _look_ at me."

He was. And he seemed to be vexed, puzzled, and empathetic all at once. "He shouldn't have done this to you."

Alex looked at him in small surprise, because for a moment, he'd sounded so different than he usually did. Her eyes went down, she shook her head slowly. "No. He shouldn't have. But Sam is my brother," Alex said, her cracked voice just a whisper. She had lost her anger, and in its place was a sort of hopeless despair. "I _love_ him. No matter what. And I want to save him—more than anything. You can't understand that. You can't. If you _did..._ you'd let Dean and I go. You'd give us that chance."

His hand came to the side of her face, a surprising and unexpected action that Alex briefly misinterpreted as affection—then realized was him healing her. The familiar bright warm light reached inside, under her skin, leaving her feeling warm and affected. His eyes locked onto hers sternly, and then his hand fell away from her face—which no longer hurt. She touched her cheek, just below her eye finding it to no longer be swollen. Disconcerted, Alex looked down. Bitter. Feeling like she owed Castiel gratitude, but she didn't want to. "I hate it when you do that," she mumbled sullenly. Her voice had returned to normal, no longer rasping or broken, even further angering her. He did this on purpose, trying to win favor when he deserved none.

She walked away and sat down on one of the chaise lounges and looked away from him. "Leave me alone, Cas. Please. I just want you to leave me alone."

When he didn't move or disappear, she looked at him pointedly. His jaw clenched, barely perceptibly, and then he was gone. In the absolute silence of the room, finally alone, Alex sat her hands in her lap and stared at nothing. She felt that the fight had gone out of her. At the thought of the apocalypse, Dean wanting Sam dead, Sam being too far gone to be saved… Alex felt wooden and numb. Helpless. And instead of doing something about it, she just wanted to fade out, quietly, like the end of a sad song.

* * *

An hour or so passed, and Alex was left alone. She didn't stir. She just waited. Wished that she could pray, because maybe it would have given her some small comfort to believe some higher power were looking out for her and her family. However, that bigger power had a name (Castiel) and a face (that she hated), and was an asshole.

Suddenly, as if knowing she were thinking of him, Castiel stood in front of her. She started, standing up at his sudden appearance. He was reaching out to her. "It's time to return to Dean." He held out his hand, indicating that she take it. She did, but not without hesitation. She didn't like the way he was looking at her, intent and observant, watchful. She didn't look back at him, just took his hand. Looked at how much smaller her hand was in his bigger one. Their surroundings changed and Alex's head felt a little off for a second. In front of her and Cas, Dean was holding his phone in the air, as if he were trying to get a signal. They let go of each other's hands at the same instant.

"You can't reach him, Dean," Castiel said to her brother, announcing their presence. "You're outside your coverage zone."

Dean turned, and upon seeing Alex, relief washed over his features. Then, a perplexed frown. "You're… all better." His eyes went to Cas, appraisingly, then back to Alex, who was coming to him. "You okay?" he asked intensely, grabbing her by both shoulders, forcing her to look at him. "Yeah, fine," she replied, sullen and tired of being asked that. Satisfied, Dean let her go and proceeded to stare down Castiel. He was mad, that much was clear. Alex crossed her arms, just watching.

"Okay, Cas, you halos are_ really_ starting to piss me off. Zachariah has been in here talking my ear off about your big plans for good old Lucifer… am I right to assume you knew about all that?"

Castiel said nothing, but Dean seemed to get confirmation in the expression on the angel's face. "Right," Dean said, scoffing. "That's just great. _Wonderful._ So, what are you gonna do to Sam?"

Meeting his gaze, Cas lifted his chin slightly. "Nothing. He's going to do it to himself."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean asked, and Castiel just looked away, silent.

"Oh, right, right," Dean said scornfully. "Got to toe the company line." He chuckled, a humorless sound.

Cas looked at Alex, then Dean, his expression oddly disconcerted. "We've been through much together. And before I leave, I just wanted to say, I'm sorry it ended like this."

That seemed to piss Dean off even further. "_Sorry_? You need a bigger word than _sorry_," Dean declared in righteous anger. Without warning, he drew back and punched Castiel, who wasn't affected at all. Dean, flexing his hand in pain, was making a face, and Alex gave Dean a look. "Yeah. Hurts like a bitch, doesn't it?"

Castiel glanced at her at that, then back to Dean. "Try to understand—this is long foretold. This is your—"

"_Destiny_?" Dean interrupted. "Don't give me that 'holy' crap. Destiny, God's plan... It's all a bunch of _lies,_ you poor, stupid son of a bitch! It's just a way for your bosses to keep me and keep you in line!" Castiel's expression was unreadable, but Alex almost thought he looked offended. "You know what's real?" Dean was becoming almost emotional now. "_People._ Families—that's real. And you're gonna watch them all _burn_?"

Dean had touched a nerve. Castiel walked forward to Dean, his entire countenance full of anger, frustration. "And what is so worth saving? I see _nothing _but pain here!"

Dean could say nothing, a little caught off guard. Castiel's voice seemed to grow lower. "I see inside you," he said, and looked at Alex again. "Both of you. I see your guilt, your anger, confusion. In paradise, all is forgiven. You'll be at peace."

Alex finally broke her silence with a low, sarcastic chuckle. Castiel looked at her sharply. "What, like _you're_ at peace, Cas? Like _you're_ happy and content?" She scoffed. "Come on."

Castiel's gaze faltered away tellingly. "Yeah, you can take your peace…" Dean said, once again drawing Castiel's attention, "and shove it up your lily-white ass!" Cas's eyes narrowed in confusion. "'Cause I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise. This is simple, Cas!" At this point, Castiel turned away, fed up. But Dean didn't stop. "No more crap about being a good soldier. There is a right and there is a wrong here, and _you know it_."

From where Alex stood, she could see the side of Cas's face. He looked conflicted. "Look at me!" Dean grabbed his shoulder roughly, turning Cas back to him.

"You were gonna help me once, weren't you?" At that question, Cas looked away from Dean, unwilling or unable to meet the other man's eyes. "You were gonna warn me about all this, before they dragged you back to Bible camp." Dean swallowed, his tone becoming pleading and desperate. "So… _help me_—now. _Please_!"

Castiel looked at him half-heartedly. "What would you have me do?"

"Take us to Sam!" Dean exclaimed, and Alex could tell he actually believed Cas might do it. "We can stop this before it's too late!"

"I do that, we will all be hunted," Cas said gravely. "We'll _all_ be killed." He looked at Alex meaningfully, maybe in an attempt to appeal to Dean's protective nature. But Dean just shook his head earnestly. "If there is anything worth dying for... this is it." And he waited. Castiel, expression pinched, hesitated, then shook his head and looked down. Dean's face went cold in anger. "You… spineless… _soulless_ son of a bitch." He walked a few steps off toward Alex, then past her. She could tell he was at the point where he was seeing red. "What do you care about dying, anyway?" Dean muttered. "You're _already _dead."

"Dean—" Cas appealed, but Dean just barked "I'm done!" and remained facing away from Castiel, who was now looking at Alex, in a mixture of hopefulness and fear. As if he wanted forgiveness, as if he wanted one of them to pat him on the back. He approached her, his expression intense. "You must understand. I cannot assist you. I must obey."

Alex just looked at him in a blank sort of way. She shrugged. "That's your decision to make."

His head tilted slightly to the side, he frowned. "You're not going to try to convince me?"

Alex looked at him for a few seconds. "You shouldn't _need_ to be convinced, Cas. You should look at this situation and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you're playing on the wrong team. That you're not serving God, you're serving some… power-tripped out angels. Who have their own sick agenda. It's a mess." She used a hand as emphasis. "It's a _mess_."

He looked almost disillusioned, like he expected her to go crazy, shout, cuss him out. But she was too tired for all that, and didn't want to waste the energy. "Cas, I won't stand here and beg you." She gave him a pointed look. "I know how that ends." She was bitter. "You've decided to be this cold, hard, unfeeling version of yourself who doesn't give two shits about the only people in the world who were stupid enough to trust you at one point. So… the end. Have a nice day. It's been real."

His mouth was open softly, his eyebrows knit closely together. He had some nerve looking so hurt, trying to play the victim. "Alex—"

"No more, Cas," she said, gritting her teeth and looking away from him and at a random spot on the wall beside her. "Just leave us alone."

Castiel looked at Dean, whose back was still turned to him, then at Alex, who wouldn't look at him. And then he left.

Alex looked at the spot he'd been, and turned on her heel. "He's gone, Dean."

Her brother turned around, expression rigid. "There's no way out of here. I tried."

"This is a real shit way to go," Alex said bitterly, and tiredly sank down onto the love seat, leaning over her knees. "What's gonna happen now?" She asked. Dean was pacing in front of her. But unlike a minute ago, there wasn't angry fire in his steps. "The apocalypse. The end of the world, I guess." He paused, his eyes downcast. He looked as done as she was with the whole thing. Just, tired, exhausted, over it.

Alex let out a heavy, bated sigh. "We tried, Dean."

He sat beside her. "Not hard enough," he said softly. In that moment, he looked so much older than he was. Alex looked at him, attempting a small, pained smile. "At least we're together?" He looked at her, his attempt at a smile as pained as hers was. He put his arm around her, and they stayed like that for a long time.

* * *

Dean paced the length of the room yet again, and Alex didn't miss the fact that he was eyeing the burgers on the table. He paused, reached for one. "Don't eat that," she told him.

He turned and looked back at her grumpily. "I'm starving. We've been here for hours."

"Just don't," she said, and he threw the burger down angrily.

Suddenly Castiel appeared behind Dean, grabbed him by the shoulder, and shoved him up against the wall, pressing a hand against his mouth. Alex jumped to her feet in alarm at the sudden appearance. "What are you doing?!"

Castiel looked at her, his expression almost frightened. "The right thing." He had Ruby's knife in his hand. He looked back at Dean, who nodded. Castiel let go of him and slashed his own arm open with the knife. Blood flowed out, and Castiel began smearing it onto the wall. Alex, who had come to stand beside Dean, watched in a mixture of rising hope… and also fear. Castiel was working fast, and he looked afraid. And when an all-powerful angel was afraid, it didn't seem right to not feel a little scared, too.

"Castiel!" Came a loud shout. It was Zachariah, and he barreled across the room at them, livid. "Would you mind explaining just what the hell you're doing?"

Castiel made a final stroke onto the sigil he had drawn, and slammed his hand into the center of it. In a violent, bright flash of white light, Zachariah vanished, leaving the Winchesters stunned. "He won't be gone long," Castiel said, his voice tinged with urgency. "We have to find Sam _now_."

"Where is he?" Dean asked.

"I don't know—but I know who does. We have to stop him, Dean, from killing Lilith."

At that, the Winchesters both glanced at each other in confusion. "But Lilith's gonna break the final seal," Dean said, his tone accusing.

"Lilith_ is_ the final seal!" Castiel exclaimed. "She _dies_, the end _begins_."

Dean and Alex stared at him in horror, as he grabbed each of them around the wrist. "Now, _hold on_."

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ I know I said it would be next week before the next chapter was up, but this one wrote itself, so... here ya go! I'm super happy to have it posted, too, as the next two or three chapters are some of my favorites. EVER… and I have a strong hunch that you guys will like them, too, as there is a lot more development of Cas/Alex. But, about this chapter: What did you guys think of the Ruby/Alex fight? The way Sam brutally attacked his sister? The interactions between Castiel and Alex? As always, I eagerly await your reviews ;) if you're a lurker, do say hello! _

_PS, this chapter officially takes the story over 100,000 words. Here's to all of you amazing reviewers and followers for giving me the inspiration to keep going!_


	18. Speak of the Devil

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 18 / Speak of the Devil

"_It's almost like your heaven's trying everything to break me down."  
_- Five Finger Death Punch

* * *

**The Next Day**

Alex took another drag from her cigarette and blew, watching the smoke flutter off into the cold midday air. It was a quiet, overcast day, which didn't seem fitting. Where was the smoke, the fire, the devil and his forked tongue, his horns and tail? Sitting there on top of the motel roof, she watched the city below. None of those people had any idea about what a complete and utter shit storm was headed their way. Must be nice. Her feet dangled off the edge of the building—about an eight story drop. She took another drag on her cigarette. She was exhausted, feeling queasy from low blood sugar. She hadn't eaten since yesterday at least, if not longer. She honestly couldn't remember. It was hard to want to eat when you had failed to stop the devil from rising.

When she and Dean had arrived at the convent, they had been too late to stop Sam. It was almost laughable how they had walked into the whole thing, how Ruby had used and tricked Sam—he had realized, _but it was too late._ Alex remembered that final scuffle—she and Dean had bursting into the room to see Sam and Ruby struggling, Lilith dead, her blood running down onto the floor, spiraling in a circle in toward itself. Dean and Sam had killed Ruby as Alex had dived to the ground, in a desperate last-ditch effort to stop the blood from touching in the centermost point. _But it was too late. _With no choice to run, they tried to escape, only to become trapped in the convent, in the room where Lucifer's white hot, burning presence began to seep out of the hole burned in the floor. It was the end, and they all knew it. And then the next instant, they were safely in an airplane over the city. Add _that _to the list of unexplained phenomenon that dominated her whole life.

_And Cas_. Alex stilled, her hand in midair, cigarette forgotten. When Chuck said he was dead… there had been this feeling, this sensation like being hit in the gut with a hammer. All Alex could think was _no_, with every part of who she was. _Not Cas. He was supposed to survive. He was supposed to be invincible. He wasn't supposed to die for them. For me. _She thought of the angel who had showed up out of nowhere, screwed her life up completely. The guy that never made any sense, the one who made her mad as hell. A silent tear spilled onto her cheek and slid down her face and she wiped it away angrily with the palm of her hand. Stupid, _stupid_ Castiel. He had died for nothing, literally, hadn't he? And it was her fault. She and Dean had guilt-tripped the poor bastard into helping them, and what did they have to show for it? Failure—absolute, complete failure. He died in vain, and she would carry that with her for the rest of her life. Add him to the forever-lengthening list of people who she'd cared about and lost.

She thought of Cas as she remembered him best—the wild hair and clear blue eyes, the odd expressiveness his face had taken on in some moments. The way it had felt to put her hand in his. The awkward and hilarious way he'd sat that one time she apologized to him. Him constantly invading her dreams and not understanding why that pissed her off. The way he had _always_ healed her. The knowledge that he was the one who gave her the ability to speak again. She knew there had been more to him, much more, than what she'd seen in the time she'd known him and she wished she could have known him better, this angel who would defy Heaven and risk everything for her and her family. He was so much braver than she had given him credit for.

She thought of the one memory that affected her the most. His response to Chuck, when the writer had protested "but you're not part of this story!" For a minute there, when Castiel had told Chuck, "we're making it up as we go," Alex had looked at him and felt so _much_ that she wanted to burst. In that moment, she had seen a bravery and courage that left her speechless. There, beside her, an angel who was willing to defy Heaven, to disobey everything he knew... all to try and do, as he said, "the right thing." He'd made a choice, committed to it with his life on the line as collateral. And now he was gone. Just _gone_. Alex flicked her cigarette off the roof and onto the street below and again wiped her cheeks, ashamed of her tears and her lack of control.

Add to the loss of their only ally in Heaven the sad state of the Winchester family… Sam wallowing in guilt, shame, and hopelessness, Dean too fed up to deal with any of it, Alex stuck in the middle. The pain, the fear, the unknown future all bore down on her relentlessly. She thought about what it would be like to be someone else. Just a regular Joe who had no idea about this supernatural Heaven and Hell crap. Every day the burden got heavier on the shoulders of the family, and their backs were threatening to break. Every time she thought she knew how bad it could be, it got worse.

* * *

"Sad we need these, man," Dean said, eyeing the hex bag in his hand. "Who would ever have thought we'd wanna hide from angels, huh? They were supposed to be the good guys."

"Yeah," Sam agreed half-heartedly, and put the other hex bag at the opposite end of the motel room. Dean watched his younger brother unenthusiastically, then took the hex bag in his hand and stuck it on top of the TV. He paused to consider the irony of what he was doing. This was really a whole new brand of crazy. _Angels _had allowed the apocalypse to take place just so that they could get their rocks off killing Lucifer themselves? They didn't _get _how insane they were. Or how stupid they were for thinking he was on their side. Zachariah's words to him earlier that day bothered him—the douchebag actually had the nerve to tell him that he needed _their_ help to defeat Lucifer. No thanks. Angels weren't invincible, and they could be killed. Dean already knew that much.

However, he wasn't sure how of how to go about it. How exactly do you hunt down a fallen angel; and more importantly than that, where could they get their hands on an angel blade? And would that work on Lucifer? Even if they figured all those little details out, Dean knew it wouldn't work if he and his siblings couldn't hold it together. His family, was ripping at the seams. There was Sam, messed up on demon blood and acting like a simpering, guilty idiot. There was Alex, depressed as hell for reasons Dean wasn't sure of, but he had a few guesses—an apocalypse both your brothers started probably didn't exactly leave her jumping for joy.

Dean could feel Sam staring at the back of his head. Annoyed, Dean turned around and looked at Sam, gauging his brother carefully. Sam looked relatively normal, which is what didn't make sense. Unlike when he'd been locked up in the panic room, Sam was now completely lucid, alert, and sober. Dean had to tell himself to cool down. He was still mad as hell about everything that had happened—Ruby, the demon blood, Sam trying to choke him to death… and who could forget Sam hitting and throwing Alex across a room? That's what bothered him the most. He remembered the tenderness and fierce devotion that the twins had for each other in childhood. The way they defended each other to no end, stuck up for each other even when the other was _definitely _wrong, cried when the other one was upset. Fast forward about fifteen years and Sam had done the unthinkable, had done something he couldn't come back from. Dean told himself to calm down. He could feel himself getting pissed. Sam was still staring at him ruefully.

Dean cleared his throat, attempting a conversational tone. "So, uh, how you doing? You jonesing for another hit of bitch blood or what?"

Sam shook his head, his expression earnest and expressive. "I-it's weird. Uh, tell you the truth, I'm fine. No shakes, no fever. It's like whoever… put me on that plane cleaned me right up."

Dean wasn't sure what to make of that, but was careful to respond neutrally. "So, supernatural methadone."

"Yeah, I guess." Sam tried a smile, paused, growing slightly trepidatious. "Dean—"

"Sam." Dean cut him off, and fast, turning around and walking back to the motel table, avoiding looking at his brother. "It's okay, you don't have to say anything."

"Well, that's good," Sam said softly. "Because what can I even say? 'I'm sorry'? 'I screwed up'?" He laughed softly, awkwardly which only made Dean's blood boil further. "Doesn't really do it justice, you know?" Sam asked. "Look, there's nothing I can do or say that will ever make this right—"

Dean was unable to hold it in any longer. "So then why do you keep bringing it up?!" he snapped, his careful facade of indifference gone. He leveled Sam with a deadly gaze, breathing heavily, walking forward a few steps and pointing a threatening finger at Sam."Look, all I got to say to you right now is if you ever—_ever_ hurt Alex like that again… you're done, man. You _touch_ her, you even _threaten_ her—we are gone, and you are dead to me." Sam looked stunned as Dean continued, his voice a low, angry rumble. "I'm serious, Sam. _You crossed a line._ After everything you've done… I don't know why I even let you come here with us!"

Sam's jaw clenched, he looked down, clearly emotional. "Yeah, no. I get that." When he looked back up again, he could barely met Dean's eyes. "Trust me. It won't ever happen again, Dean. It... it shouldn't have happened at all." Sam breathed in shakily, shutting his eyes for a second, as if in pain. "I... _hate_ myself for what I did." His eyes opened again, beseeching Dean. "To both of you, and with Ruby, and… everything. It _scares_ me, Dean..."

Dean turned around. "Yeah, well, me too."

"I didn't know what I was doing at the time," Sam said. He sounded like he was making a plea for his case. Dean turned back around challengingly. "And that makes it _okay_?"

Fumbling, Sam wet his lips. "No, of course it doesn't, but—"

Dean held up a hand for silence, reaching the end of his anger. "Look, all I'm saying is, why do we have to put this under a microscope?" Dean asked. "Let's just move on. I said my peace, you said yours, now let it go. I can't talk about this anymore."

Sam took a beat, and then nodded. Dean could tell that his little brother had a lot more to say… but Dean didn't care right now. He was too pissed, too tired, too messed up to even think about all this crap at the moment. He sat back down at the flimsy motel table and resumed cleaning his gun sullenly.

"Where's Alex, anyway?" Sam asked hesitantly.

"Said she needed some air." Dean paused and looked up at Sam. "I wouldn't get your hopes up, Sam."

"About what?" Sam asked, perplexed.

"What do you think?" Dean asked, meeting Sam's gaze evenly. "I doubt she'll ever be able to trust you after that. I'm sure as hell not sure if I can." He looked away and back to the chamber of the gun, shoving the cloth down in there to get the residue out. Sam shifted slightly at the edge of Dean's vision. Dean didn't even have to look. He could hear the heartbreak in Sam's tone. "Right."

"We have more important things to worry about right now anyway," Dean said, ignoring Sam's emotional distress. "Like hunting down the friggin' devil."

Sam took in a deep breath and nodded, clearly forcing himself to push aside his feelings. "Yeah. Okay." He came closer and sat down at the table. "So where do we start?"

Dean paused. "Yeah… uh… about that. I'm not entirely sure."

* * *

When it started drizzling, Alex finally left her spot on the roof and made her way back to the room, hugging her jacket around herself tightly against the dropping temperature. When she reached the room, she opened the door to a very unexpected sight. Her brothers both standing in the middle of the room with a sort of small, mousy woman. She was touching Sam's chest, practically nestling there. Alex froze in the door frame, not sure what was happening. "What's... going on?"

Dean gave her a look, and Sam attempted a smile in the woman's direction—it looked more like a grimace. "Can you, uh, stop touching me Becky?" Sam asked, apparently too polite to physically step back.

"No..." the girl, apparently named Becky whimpered, and leaned closer, her hand rubbing over Sam's pecs. Alex looked at Dean in lost confusion. "Who the hell is this chick?" Then her expression changed to disbelief. "_Dean_! You promised no more hookers!"

At that, Alex finally had Becky's attention. The woman's jaw was practically on the floor, and she'd frozen completely. Sam took the opportunity to back up. "I'm not a _hooker_—I'm... _Becky_. Mr. Edlund—_Chuck_—sent me, to deliver a message. To Sam and Dean." At the mention of them, she forgot her offense and smiled breathlessly up at Sam, who looked highly uncomfortable.

Becky seemed to think of something and looked at Alex again. "Ohhh…" she nodded slowly, eyes narrowing in understanding. "So _you _must be Alex. Huh." She looked Alex up and down appraisingly. She didn't seem to know what to think. She looked mildly disappointed or disapproving. It was hard to tell which. Alex, completely puzzled, looked to her brothers for an explanation.

"Becky, uh, read the books," Sam said, to which Becky turned and beamed up at him. "Every single one," she all but gushed.

"Great. Good for you…?" Alex said, not impressed. She glanced at Dean, who rolled his eyes, exasperated. She looked back at Becky, who was now staring at Sam's chest, entranced. This was bizarre, so bizarre it was beginning to get funny. Alex tilted her head to the side, totally mystified by Becky's strange behavior. Sam looked like he was screaming internally, and glanced at Dean, then Alex, his eyes saying 'help me!' but when his two baffled siblings did nothing, he was forced to take matters into his own hands. "Uh, listen, Becky. Thanks for the message. But, we gotta, uh, get back to…" he went blank for a second. "Uh, hunter stuff."

"Oh _wow_!" Becky squealed, sounding completely starstruck… but didn't take the hint, just stood there and smiled widely, breathing through her mouth, gazing at Sam like he were the most amazing thing she'd ever seen. Alex cleared her throat and put a hand on Becky's shoulder, used her other hand to jerk a thumb at the door. "In other words, you gotta leave."

"Oh! Oh." Becky's face got kind of sad. "Okay, yeah. Sam… _so good_ to meet you." Becky walked sideways out of the door, her eyes never leaving Sam (who was clearly scared out of his mind behind his attempt at a polite smile). Alex shut the door on Becky without ceremony and turned around, then clasped her hands together and leveled Sam with dramatic goo goo eyes. "Oh _Saaaam_," Alex mocked, earning a soft, embarrassed laugh from Sam.

Dean grinned. "You're _so_ _firm_," he purred dramatically, his expression an hilarious mix of flirtatious suggestiveness and slightly sinister intent. That did it. All three of them burst into laughter, and for a minute, they forgot. They forgot the stigma and the tension, they forgot they were angry with each other, that the world was falling apart, that nothing was okay. They just giggled at each other and at Becky's antics. And then, even before it began, it was over. Sam's smile faded into a conflicted expression, and with the loss of his smile, Dean and Alex's faded, too, as they remembered everything they had briefly forgotten. There was a slight hesitation.

"So," Dean said, clearing his throat and looking at Alex. "Sam's number one fan had a message from Chuck. 'The Michael sword is on earth. The angels lost it.'"

"The _what _sword?" Alex asked.

"No clue. That's why I'm calling Bobby. I'll be back." Dean stepped out, leaving the twins in the silent motel room.

Alex looked at Sam sidelong, considering trying to talk to him. But she wasn't sure how to. He was looking at her in the same way, like he wanted to say something but couldn't. He took a deep breath, hesitated, opened his mouth, shut it again, cleared his throat, then left in a rush, muttering something about "back later" before the door shut.

Alex watched him go, disappointed, the familiar sadness returning. Alex curled up in one of the beds, shoes and all, and stared at the wall. The silence in the room was deafening.

* * *

Dean shook Alex awake when Bobby showed up, which must have been several hours later. She should have felt rested from the nap she didn't even mean to take, but she only felt more tired, and with a killer headache to boot. Bobby shared with them some findings on Michael's sword as Alex hung back, tuned out, sitting cross-legged on one of the bed's and picking at the chipped red nail polish that was still on her fingernails. She was really getting frustrated.

"Sam, stop it," Dean thundered, and Alex looked up, confused—what had she missed? Bobby was staring at Sam angrily.

"No, Dean. Bobby, it was _me_ who broke the final seal," Sam said, his voice unsteady and full of pained remorse. "I killed Lilith, and I set Lucifer free."

"You _what_?" Bobby asked in disbelief.

"You guys warned me about Ruby, the demon blood, but I didn't listen. I brought this on." Sam might as well have been in front of a firing squad. Bobby stood up, his expression so full of fury that he was barely recognizable. "You're _damn right _you didn't listen. You were reckless and selfish and arrogant!"

Sam shook his head hollowly. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, yeah? You're_ sorry _you started Armageddon?" Bobby was practically snarling now. "This kind of thing don't get forgiven, boy. _If,_ by some miracle, we pull this off… I want you to lose my number. You understand me?"

Sam, heartbroken, nodded, even as Alex's mouth hung open. "_Bobby_!" Alex exclaimed, her tone decidedly admonishing. She received a similar, wrathful glare from Bobby. Confused, Alex looked at Dean, who didn't say a damn thing in Sam's defense. Yeah, the guy had messed up, but this was just cruel, wasn't it?

Sam swallowed, struggling, his eyes downcast. "There's… there's an old church nearby. Maybe I'll go read some of the lore books there."

"Yeah," Bobby retorted sharply. "You _do that_."

Sam was no longer able to maintain any eye contact at all, and still nodding, as if in shock or a daze, turned and left, shutting the door softly behind him. About two seconds of stunned silence on Alex's part passed, and then she hopped off the bed, grabbing her jacket from where she had tossed it earlier. "Where the hell are you going?" Dean asked, frowning.

At the door, with her hand on the knob, Alex turned and looked at him unflinchingly. "With Sam."

Bobby's face scrunched in something like disgust. "With _Sam_? He jump started the end of the world, and you wanna hold his hand?"

Alex scoffed. "Bobby, what the hell has gotten into you?" She glanced at Dean. "Both of you." She turned and walked out, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

Sam walked down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, eyes on the ground in front of him. He had really, _really_ messed up this time. Everything they had said about him was true. Every dark suspicion he'd had about himself was true: he was a monster inside. He had been blinded and controlled by his addictions, his fears, his insecurities. He couldn't do anything right—that had been his worst fear growing up, and yesterday, that fear had been confirmed once and for all. The faces of the people he'd let down flooded his mind. Dean, superior, disappointed, unforgiving. Bobby, enraged and hateful. Alex, hurt and distant. Dad, always disappointed, always unsatisfied. Jess, who never had a chance. Not with him in her life. Maybe he was poison. Maybe everything and everyone he touched was doomed to be destroyed and messed up by him. He looked up, sniffed loudly, trying to ignore the pain. Blinking fast, because his eyes were threatening to flood.

A shout behind him startled him out of his thoughts. "Sam, wait up!" He turned to see that Alex was jogging to catch up to him. He stopped walking, his heart clenching in pain at the sight of her. Had he forgotten something, or was she about to chew him out, finally, too? "What is it?" he asked cautiously, preparing himself to be attacked again. She had reached him now, and looked up at him. Her expression wasn't friendly, but it wasn't aggressive either. She shrugged lightly, as if he should already know the answer to his question. "I'm coming with."

"What, they sent you to babysit me?" he asked, defeated.

"Uh, _no_," she said, her tone him suggesting that was ridiculous, but funny. She smiled at him—and in that moment, after everything that had happened the past twenty-four hours, that simple act meant everything to him. She nodded her head in the direction of the church and bumped him in the arm with her elbow. "Come on, this lore isn't gonna read itself."

* * *

"Got anything?" Sam asked. Alex looked up at her twin from the huge book she'd been leafing through for the past hour. "Nothing about the Michael sword being an actual physical object, if that's what you mean."

"Me either." Sam let out a very tired, very frustrated sigh. They were sitting across from each other in the church study. It was a pretty fancy room, with a few religious paintings on the walls and many thick books lining the shelves. Above Sam's head and on the wall behind him, there was a huge watercolor of an angel holding a scroll. Every time Alex looked up, she stared at it. The angel was barefoot, wearing a flowing white shapeless thing, with fluffy white wings and a dreamy expression on its face. Every time Alex looked at it, she got a little more perturbed. Angels did not look like that. They looked like handsome businessmen with confused, stern scowls forever etched onto their features. She looked away from the painting, and at Sam.

With his hands resting on either side of the book and his eyes not seeing the space in front of him. He looked totally lost and alone, his jaw working weirdly, the muscles flexing and clenching, as if he were at war within himself. Without any warning, he looked up, his expression agonized and vulnerable. "I just want you to know I'm sorry. So, so sorry. If you never forgive me, I'll understand."

A little surprised at his sudden, out of place confession, Alex opened her mouth to reply, but he was already talking again. "How can you even_ look_ at me? After what—what I've done?" He had brought one of his hands to cover his face, his voice beginning to rise and speed up. "God, I just... what happened? These things inside me Alex, I thought I could outrun them—but—but..." his face twisted up in pain, "I don't belong anywhere near you, near anyone I love." His fists clenched tight where they rested on the table. "I was so stupid to think no one would get _hurt_—I endangered you and Dean and it's because... because..." he was getting out of breath in his earnest, emotional rant and Alex was getting freaked. "I'm _cursed_!"

"_Sam_." Alex reached out and put a hand over one of his hands that was still balled into a fist. He stilled, looking at her hand, then her, appearing totally surprised. She looked at him intently, trying to be honest, pushing past her own feelings in favor of him. "Sam... _stop_. You're okay. Calm down." She looked at him hesitatingly, putting herself out there vulnerably. "Sam... I love you, okay? You're—you're gonna be all right."

His expression flickered, his gaze faltered. "You... don't wanna lose my number?"

Alex's heart hurt at that question. "No." She tightened her grip on his hand. "I get it. You're upset about what Bobby said. But he didn't mean it, I know he didn't. It's not like him to say that kind of stuff."

He looked like he could barely believe what she was saying, but was dying to. He looked at her hand there on his and frowned, took his hand away, looking disturbed and distracted. His voice dropped in volume, he swallowed, his eyebrows seemed to wobble towards each other. "You—you don't think I deserved that?"

Alex shook her head earnestly. "_No_."

Sam's expression broke as his composure cracked. "I'm sorry," he confessed through a sudden onslaught of pained tears. "So, _so_ sorry."

Alex was already knocking her chair back and halfway around the table, wrapping her arms around Sam's massive shoulders. He tensed for a minute, not accepting the embrace at first—then his arms gingerly circled her as she rested her chin on the top of his head. He wept bitterly but quietly, his body shaking violently. Alex just stayed there with him, swallowing tears herself. She really couldn't stand to see him in so much pain, so much internal agony. She thought of how brutally he had hit her, but told herself... that wasn't Sammy. That was the demon blood. She decided right then and there to forgive and forget it this one time. If it happened again, by God, there would be hell to pay. But today, she was putting it in the past. After a minute, Sam let out a few shaky breaths and drew back, pulling himself together. He looked up at her, kind of embarrassed, awkward. Alex's mouth quirked up on one side in a crooked smile, and she tapped him affectionately under his chin with her index finger—something she'd done since she could remember; since they were pre-schoolers. At that familiar, fond gesture, a small, real smile pulled Sam's lips upward. His face relaxed. The smile reached his eyes.

"Let's get outta here," Alex suggested, already reaching for her jacket. "I don't think we're gonna find anything here."

Sam stood up, towering over her, looking more himself—clear-headed and calm, if a little red-faced from the tears. He ruffled her hair affectionately, earning a good-natured protest of "_heeeey_!" from Alex, who ducked away, laughing, really laughing and surprised at herself. He hadn't done that in forever. They were _okay_ the whole walk back, talking about things that didn't matter: why gas station sandwiches were literally the worst things in the world, their conflicting opinions on which character on 21 Jumpstreet was the best, and how they would kill for another chance to taste Crystal Pepsi.

Maybe it was a truce or just them trying really hard to gloss over what happened two days ago, but it felt good. It felt nice.

* * *

As with their life, the temporary happiness, the lull in tragedy, was doomed to be short-lived. Sam and Alex got back to the motel and found Bobby, stabbed and dying on the floor, Meg the demon trying to kill off Dean. Naturally, they'd taken care of the demons pretty quickly, but Meg had escaped. Another demon bitch they'd have to kill another day.

As they raced a dying, bleeding Bobby to the E.R., Dean told them he'd been possessed the whole time, the demon inside him trying to find the Michael sword before they did. He insisted that they had to go to someplace in upstate New York, a place called Castle Storage, where the sword was packed away, and _now_. They had to leave Bobby behind to undergo emergency surgery while they made a frenzied five hour car drive in a desperate bid to beat the demons. The entire way was tense. They were all worried about Bobby, all wondering what this sword of Michael would do in the wrong hands.

It was a few hours before sunrise when they pulled into the empty parking lot of Castle Storage. Dean jerked the car into a parking space and they were out of the car, grabbing their weapons out of the trunk. "Looks like we beat 'em," Dean said, casting glances around—the place was quiet and still. Alex cocked her shotgun with a satisfying click-_click_.

"Stay close together, just in case," Dean said, and led the way to the storage unit. They entered, shotguns held to their shoulders… and then… stopped, mystified. Dead bodies littered the floor. Demons. "What the…" Sam trailed off.

"I see you told the demons where the sword is," came a voice from behind them. The Winchesters whirled around to see Zachariah, smiling patronizingly at them, two other angels with him. "Oh, thank _god_," Dean said sarcastically, recovering from the surprise. "The angels are here."

"And to think… they could have grabbed the sword any time they wanted." Zachariah raised one of his hands, and the metal door slammed closed, trapping them there. Sam inched a little closer to Alex, protectively. "It was right in front of them all along." Zachariah shook his head, chuckling.

"What do you mean?" Dean demanded, eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Well, while we may have planted that particular piece of prophecy inside Chuck's skull, but it happened to be true. We _did _lose the Michael sword. We truly couldn't find it. Until now. You've just hand-delivered it to us."

"We don't have anything," Dean said cooly.

Zachariah blinked a couple times, almost rolled his eyes. "It's _you_, chucklehead. _You're _the Michael sword."

There was a confused silence. "Come again?" Dean asked.

"Yup, interesting, huh?" Zachariah asked, his voice exceedingly bright and bubbly. "What, you thought you could actually kill Lucifer? You simpering wad of insecurity and self-loathing?" At the insults, Alex made a face. It made sense now. That's where Uriel had gotten his people skills from, apparently. Zachariah came closer to them, a superior smile on his face. "You're just a human—Dean. And not much of one."

"Hey," Sam shot darkly, earning a cursory glance from Zachariah.

"What do you mean, I'm the sword?" Dean asked, ignoring the insult.

Zachariah smiled, as if in excitement. "You're Michael's vessel."

Dean shook his head, as if there had clearly been a mistake. "What? No… why—why me?"

"Because you're chosen! It's a great honor, Dean."

"Oh, yeah," Dean said, his tone full of sardonic enthusiasm. "Yeah, life as an angel condom. That's real fun. I think I'll _pass_, thanks."

Zachariah shook his head, his expression disappointed and a little offended. "Joking. Always joking. Well… no more jokes." He raised his hand, his fingers like a gun, and pointed at Dean—then shifted and pointed at Sam. "Bang."

There was an audible crunch, and Sam fell, a sound of agony ripping from his throat. Even before Sam had hit the ground, Zachariah pointed to Alex, and repeated, "Bang."

Alex's knees both exploded in pain, and she screamed, collapsing, the pain blinding. "You son of a bitch!" Dean shouted, and Zachariah leveled him with a grim stare.

"Keep mouthing off, I'll break more than their legs. I am completely and utterly through screwing around. The war has begun. We don't have our general. That's bad. Now, Michael is going to take his vessel and lead the final charge against the adversary. _You understand me_?"

On the ground behind Dean, Sam and Alex were both writhing in agony. He was shaking at this point. "Yeah? And how many humans die in the crossfire, huh? A million? Five, ten?"

"Probably more. If Lucifer goes unchecked, you know how many die? _All of them._ He'll roast the planet alive."

Dean paused, thinking fast. "There's a reason you're telling me this instead of just nabbing me. You need my consent. Michael needs my say-so to ride around in my skin."

"Unfortunately, yes. There is no other way. There must be a battle. Michael must defeat the serpent. It is written."

"Yeah, maybe," Dean said, almost sounding like he was considering it. "But, on the other hand... _Eat me_." Zachariah's face fell as Dean raised an eyebrow. "The answer's _no_."

"Okay. How about this? Your friend Bobby—we know he's gravely injured. Say yes, and we'll heal him. Say no... he'll never walk again."

Sam and Alex looked up at Dean, whose expression was resolute and unyielding. They looked at each other. There was no way he was going to say yes, and they both knew it.

"No," Dean repeated through gritted teeth.

Zachariah nodded, then countered again. "Then how about we heal you from… hmm… stage-four stomach cancer?"

Dean frowned, then suddenly doubled over, coughing and gagging, falling over onto all fours. He spit blood into his palm, then looked up at Zachariah defiantly. "_No_."

"Boy. You sure drive a hard bargain!" Zachariah commented with false enthusiasm. "Let's get really creative. Uh, let's see how… Sam does without his lungs."

Sam suddenly went silent, his mouth open and closing, as if he were gasping for air.

"Are we having fun yet?" He looked at Alex and made a face like he'd just noticed something. "Oh and look, Alex is suffering from stage four throat cancer. Tragic."

Alex felt her entire body convulse, and she coughed up blood in a sudden, violent fit, her breathing ragged and shallow. Dean looked between his siblings in alarm, and Zachariah came to him, grabbed his chin, forced him to look him in the eye. "You're going to say _yes_, Dean," Zachariah said balefully.

"Just kill us," Dean fired back. "Kill you?" Zachariah stood up and let go of Dean. "Oh, no. I'm just getting started."

Alex gagged again, choking on huge chunks of blood in her throat. Beside her, Sam was bucking, gasping for air. She could barely concentrate, barely breathe, barely move from the pain that seized her body. And then, a bright light and fierce wind filled the room. Zachariah turned, Alex squinted and looked away. Her eyes couldn't take the unyielding, blinding light. The light faded and she looked up again, groaning against the pain—and she almost fell over when she realized what she was seeing.

_Castiel_ stabbed one of Zachariah's henchmen in the neck, and threw the angel to the ground, his trench coat whirling around him as he turned and slammed his fist into the other angel's stomach, raising the knife high. The other angel struggled, holding Cas off for a second. The angel blade flashed in the light, and the two of them smashed into a pile of boxes, sending everything flying.

Beside Alex, Sam quaked and Alex grabbed his shoulders. "Hang on, just hang on Sammy!" she begged, gagging on more blood, almost drowning. Nearby, Dean was on the ground, groaning and coughing.

With brutal finality Cas slammed his opponent face-first up against a wall, and stabbed him with the blade, then let the body fall lifeless to the ground. He drew back, at his full height, his face radiant with energy, with power, with confidence. He stared down at Zachariah, his face furious, intense, fiery.

Beneath Alex's hands, Sam had stopped moving. She stared down at him, alarmed.

"How are you…" Zachariah asked, clearly in shock. "Alive?" Cas replied, and his deep, familiar voice drew Alex's attention. "That's a good question. How did these three end up on that airplane?" He motioned at the Winchesters, his eyes briefly meeting Alex's before returning to Zachariah. "Another good question. Because the angels didn't do it. I think we both know the answer, don't we?"

"No," Zachariah said softly, hollowly. "That's not possible."

"It scares you. Well, it should." Castiel's voice darkened with a threatening, commanding quality. "Now, put these boys and their sister back together and go._ I won't ask twice._"

Zachariah disappeared, and Alex jumped, startled, when Sam suddenly shot up, looking around in alarm and confusion, breathing heavily. Confused, Alex suddenly realized her knees were fine, her throat was fine. She wiped blood away from the edges of her mouth as Sam stood and pulled her to her feet, too.

"You three need to be more careful," Castiel said, approaching them as his gaze skimmed over them.

"Yeah, I'm starting to get that," Dean said. "Your frat brothers are bigger dicks than I thought."

"I don't mean the angels," Castiel said. "Lucifer is circling his vessel. And once he takes it, those hex bags won't be enough to protect you."

He came even closer, and raised both hands, roughly putting one on each of the boy's chests. Alex, who was standing behind them and between them, jumped as they both jolted and gasped. "What the hell was that?" Dean asked.

"An Enochian sigil," Castiel said. "It'll hide you from every angel in creation, including Lucifer."

"What, did you just _brand _us with it?" Dean asked.

"No. I carved it into your ribs," Cas said, as if, naturally, they should have known that. He looked directly at Alex and lowered his chin slightly, made a 'come here' motion with his hand, indicating that it was her turn. "Alex."

Dean and Sam stepped aside so that she could move forward, which she did, a little apprehensively, still not entirely sure she could believe he was actually alive. But, there was was, flesh and blood, right in front of her, his eyes locked onto hers. His hand, warm and a little rough came to rest against the bare skin of her chest, right below and to the side of the dip of her collarbone, the bottom of his palm brushing up against he edge of where the low scoop of her tank top started. The sensation of the touch startled her into stillness. She didn't have time to think about it any more, as suddenly there was a scraping, burning sensation all over the inside of her torso. He held her gaze the entire time and she grimaced, but even before she could fully process the strange feeling, it was gone.

Castiel stepped back with a hooded glance at Alex, and then looked over the Winchesters, apparently satisfied with his handiwork. "How are you alive, Cas?" Alex asked.

He looked at her, and then disappeared without a word, leaving three very confused Winchesters behind.

Dean gave a huge sigh. "Dammit. Same old Cas." He smiled lightly, though, relieved.

He went to the door and yanked it open. "Well, _this_ has been a fun night."

"You and I have a different idea of fun, Dean," Alex said, frowning deeply, staring back at where Cas had been. He was just... alive again? Like that? She breathed in deeply, then out again, mind spinning. How was he back? Had he really died at all, or what? Her questions would have to wait. He was alive... and that, for now, was enough.

* * *

**Three Days Later**

Alex sat across from Bobby, who was in his wheelchair, staring out the window listlessly, just as he had been for the last few days. "Bobby." He didn't acknowledge her at all, and she tried moving her face closer into his line of sight. "Bobby." No reply. "Three days of nothing from you… come on. Gimme something to work with here."

He only glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, then looked back out the window. Alex pulled one of her knees into her chest, the other leg dangling. "This reminds me of the time Dad was so mad at me that he gave me the silent treatment for a week." Bobby looked at her, his expression fuzzy, like he didn't know what she was talking about. She shrugged humbly, an impish sort of smile on her face as she attempted to jog his memory. "When I dropped out of high school by forging his signature on all the paperwork? That time."

Bobby, remembering, smiled slightly, but quickly scoffed, covering it up with a frown, and looked away, still refusing to reply. Alex rolled her eyes and sighed fondly. He was pouting and silent, kind of like a mad five-year-old. He crossed his arms, only serving to make him look even more like a sassy five-year-old. Alex shook her head good naturedly and looked up, at where her brothers were standing just outside the room. She stood up in surprise. Castiel stood outside the room with Sam and Dean, who was saying, "Since when do angels need a cell phone to reach out and touch someone?"

"You're hidden from angels now—all angels. I won't be able to simply—"

Beside Alex, the sound of Bobby's gruff voice startled her. "Enough foreplay." The guys all looked their way. "Get over here and lay your damn hands on."

Castiel's lips thinned in a line. "I can't." Bobby turned his chair on Cas, his expression deadly cold. "Say again?"

"I'm cut off from Heaven and much of Heaven's power," Castiel explained, walking into the room. Alex watched him in somewhat stunned silence—his unexpected appearances should be common place by now, shouldn't they? "Certain things I can do," Cas was saying. "Certain things I can't."

"You're telling me you lost your mojo just in time to get me stuck in this trap the rest of my life?" Bobby asked, his voice rising, especially toward the end.

"I'm sorry," Castiel said, and in reply, Bobby glared and turned his chair back ground. "Shove it up your ass."

"At least he's talking now," Dean muttered. "I heard that," Bobby grumbled.

Cas turned away, expression hard to read. "I don't have much time," he said, speaking in hushed tones, forcing the Winchesters to come closer to hear. "We need to talk. About your plan to kill Lucifer."

"Yeah?" Dean asked, looking mildly enthused. "You wanna to help?"

"No," Cas replied without missing a beat. "It's foolish. It can't be done."

Sam and Alex exchanged puzzled frowns. "Oh, well thanks for the support," Dean said with a disingenuous smile.

"Why not?" Alex asked. "Isn't Lucifer just another angel with some, you know, special features and bonus material?"

Cas looked at her for the first time since he'd arrived. "No. He's more powerful than any angel, any demon. He cannot be killed." He looked at Dean, then Sam. "But I believe I have the solution. There is someone besides Michael strong enough to take on Lucifer. Strong enough to stop the apocalypse."

"Who's that?" Sam asked.

"The one who resurrected me and put you on that airplane," Castiel said, and from the way he was speaking—a little faster than usual, a little more emphatic—it was easy to tell he really believed in whatever plan he was brewing. "The one who began everything. _God_."

There was a short, startled silence. The Winchesters exchanged a long, skeptical glance. Castiel was breathing in deeply, looking resolute. "I'm gonna find God."

At that, Dean turned and closed the door of the room and repeated "_God_?"

"Yes," Castiel replied simply.

Dean made a face. "God."

"Yes!" Cas replied, getting exasperated. "He isn't in Heaven. He has to be _somewhere_."

"Try New Mexico," Dean said, a little smirk playing on his lips. "I hear he's on a tortilla."

Castiel's expression showed zero understanding of the joke. He shook his head, befuddled, taking Dean literally. "No... he's not on any _flatbread._"

Sam paced in the corner near Bobby, and Alex had taken a seat on the bed. At the flatbread comment, she gave Cas a weird, amused look.

"Listen, Chuckles," Dean talked down to Cas, "even if there is a God, he is either_ dead_—and that's the generous theory—"

"He is out there, Dean," Castiel insisted, his tone taking a decidedly aggressive edge.

"Oh come on! Look around you, man," Dean ranted, throwing his hands in the air. "The world is in the toilet. We are literally at the end of days here, and he's off somewhere drinking booze out of a coconut. All right?"

"Enough," Castiel said, glaring. "This is not a theological issue. It's _strategic_." He came closer to Dean, his expression fierce. "With God's help, we can win."

"It's a pipe dream, Cas," Dean said in dismissal. That seemed to touch a nerve.

"I killed two angels this week," Castiel breathed, his expression twisted in genuine anger. "My _brothers_. I'm hunted. I rebelled. And I did it, all of it, _for you_, and you failed. You, your sister, your brother destroyed the world—" Sam looked down, Alex's head swiveled to the side in an indignant, open-mouthed look as Cas continued, "—and I lost everything, for _nothing_. So keep your opinions to yourself."

Dean made no reply, clearly stunned into guilty silence, but Alex stood up, eyes narrowed, arms crossing, her mouth opening to correct him. "_We_ destroyed the world? Are you _serious_ right now?" Everyone in the room looked at her, but she was only looking at Cas, who was scowling at her, daring her to continue. She smiled facetiously, tightly. "Okay. _Yes_, Castiel, Dean and I_ did_ fail to stop Sam. And yeah, Sam made the biggest mistake of his life and played a _role _starting the Apocalypse… but don't you _dare_ imply that this is entirely _our _fault. That _you're _some kind of victim here."

She shook her head in disgusted disbelief. "Do you have _amnesia_? You told us that the angels were trying to save the world… and the whole time you and those two-faced sons of bitches were planning to _let it all _happen, to set Lucifer free, to make sure the apocalypse would happen—you lied to our faces. Did you forget that little detail? Cuz to be honest, I'm kinda stuck on it." She was in his face now, her voice low. "Don't think your last minute change of heart and a few sacrifices makes you the hero in all of this and us the bad guys. My family is not responsible for the apocalypse and you know it, so cut the shit and man up to your own mistakes." His mouth was open slightly, but she wasn't done. She gave him one, final, sarcastic face. "_You_ keep _your_ self-righteous hypocrisy to _your_self." The room went silent, tense. Alex was practically shaking.

Castiel blinked three times, apparently speechless. "_Damn_." Dean commented, saying what everyone else in the room was thinking.

Alex, suddenly unable to handle all the stares and Castiel's stunned, hurt expression, left the room, blood boiling and heart racing, briefly wondering how she could be mourning Cas one day and then wanting to bash his head in the next. All of the men watched her go—Dean, Sam, and Bobby, impressed—Castiel looking more like he had been run over by a train.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ Oh, my heart. This chapter! It was so emotionally draining to write… I hope you guys liked it. I am so happy Sam and Alex finally had a little breakthrough. And what about Alex's rant to Cas? Girlfriend had a point… if I say so myself… hehe. Maybe she needs to take politeness lessons though. After all, she did learn from Dean..._

_So, the next two chapters are… just… asdlkfjdsfldskjf. Chapter 19 is shaping up to be hilarious—brothel scene, you guys! AHH LOL—plus a couple other original scenes that I am in love with… and long long Calex conversations. And then we'll finally hit chapter 20… OMG don't even get me started. It's my favorite. Ever. I'm dying. DYING. _

_Quick heads up; I work a seasonal job and will be getting very busy here shortly so I hope I can publish 19 and 20 before my life becomes insane(er) than it already is, however I don't want to rush them out. So please be patient with me, leave lots of reviews and you can also check out the tumblr (user name is __**winchesteralex**__ or you can search the hash tag __**alex winchester**__) as I am always posting Calex gif sets, Alex pictures, and author's notes too :D_


	19. Daddy Issues

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 19 / Daddy Issues

"_And I hate myself for being human. What good are hearts if you cant use them?"  
_- God or Julie

* * *

**Two Weeks Later**

Alex and Dean entered their motel room, threw their stuff down, exhausted and covered in vampire blood. Alex sat on one of the beds, yanking off her boots, which stuck damply to her feet.

A week ago, Sam had left. Hitched a ride to wherever, just like that. It happened after the three of them had worked a job in Colorado, caught up with a few old hunting buddies—Rufus, Jo, Ellen. The town had been a disaster. A newcomer on the scene, War, as mentioned in Revelation, had turned the entire town against one another. And Sam, after they had cut War's ring of influence from his hand, had split. Saying he needed a break, that he didn't trust himself.

Dean hadn't stopped him, or even tried to talk to him about it. He'd been totally, worryingly okay with it. Practically sent their brother off with a shove as he walked out the door. Alex had begged Sam to change his mind, to just give it some time, but he'd left anyway. Dean had been avoiding the subject ever since. The past few days he'd put everything into finding the vamps and had ignoring her down to a fine art. But now that that the job was taken care of, Alex wasn't going to stay quiet any longer. She looked up at her brother from where she was been sitting. "Dean, we gotta talk."

He turned around and from the look he gave her, she could tell he had been expecting this. He had an unfriendly, sarcastic kind of smile on his face. "Look, I already know you've just been _waiting_ wanna bitch me out about Sam. So go ahead. I'm all ears."

Typical Dean. "Why do you have to be like that?" Alex asked. "You don't even know what I was gonna say."

He took a couple ambling steps toward her, giving off the air of superiority. "Lemme guess: you were gonna say that we shouldn't have split up, I should have made him to stay, he shouldn't be alone right now."

Alex's mouth went into a thin line, irritated that he got it right, and even more irritated that he didn't see the problem. "Well… _yeah_. He's dealing with something bigger than him." She tried to reason with him. "Don't you think should be helping him through it, not putting more miles between us?"

Dean swaggered over, jabbing his finger at the ground. "This right here? The family business? We got no room for that bleeding heart, wishy washy crap. We don't have time for issues, we just gotta kill or be killed."

Alex rolled her eyes. "Right, because _you _don't have any issues."

"Oh, and you're just Miss America, aren't you?" he retorted.

"Why can't you just admit you're _wrong _about this?" Alex demanded, wishing just once he'd drop the know-it-all, asshole attitude.

"Because I'm _not wrong_," Dean said forcefully. "I didn't make Sam leave. He _wanted _out—end of story, Alex!" His volume was nearing a shout now. "I'm the oldest and it's my car, my house, my rules, so if you don't like it, feel free to _shove off_!" He heard himself say the words and paused, taking a deep breath and visibly cooling off a little. "I didn't mean that," he muttered, then his expression became pissy again. "But if you wanna be with Sammy so bad, the door is right there. I'm sure as hell not keeping you here."

"Stop putting me in the middle!" Alex exclaimed, throwing her hands up in frustration. "I shouldn't have to choose a _side_!"

Dean took in a tired, aggravated breath, looked at his angry sister for a long moment. "Come on, Al, we've done this before. Sam was gone for four friggin' years and you didn't care then, so what's different this time?"

That simple comment hurt the worst out of all of them. She really hated Dean sometimes, and his stupid, selfish, judgmental attitude. She turned away, yanked her hair out of the absent-minded pony-tail it had been in. "Whatever Dean, never mind. I need to get this vamp blood off of me."

Alex disappeared with a hearty door slam into the bathroom, leaving Dean to roll his eyes and begin cleaning the blood off his jacket. This motel was weird, it had a sink and mirror in the main room, while the shower and toilet were in a separate bathroom across the room. He heard the water start in the bathroom and grumbled to himself for a few minutes, then began to wash up in the sink out here. His headstrong, opinionated sister wasn't right, about any of it. At least, that's what he told himself. It had been Sam's choice, and it had been the right thing for the family. Sam's demon blood issue was just _too much_. Too much.

He glanced up in the mirror, and jumped at what he saw in the reflection. Castiel was standing behind him, staring silently—creepily. "Oh my _God_." Dean thumped the sink. "Don't do that!"

"Hello, Dean," Cas greeted plainly. Dean turned around, finding Castiel in his face, only inches away. He sighed and gave the angel a look. "Cas, we've talked about this. Personal space?"

Brief understanding flickered across Cas's face. "My apologies."

Cas stepped back, and Dean set him with a questioning, probing frown. "How'd you find me? I thought I was flying below the angel radar."

"You are," Cas replied. "Bobby told me where you were." He looked around. "Where's Sam?" Dean smiled thinly. "Me and Sam are taking separate vacations for a while."

"And Alex?" Cas asked.

"What's with the twenty questions? In the _shower,_ man," Dean replied impatiently. "You find God yet? More importantly, can I have my damn necklace back, please?"

Cas's expression was unhappy. "No, I haven't found him. That's why I'm here. I need your help."

"_My_ help? With what? The God hunt?" Dean chuckled. "Not interested."

Castiel opened his mouth to reply, but a blood-curdling scream and loud crash cut him off. It was hard to tell who was moving first, Dean or Cas. Without even pausing to see if the door were locked or not, Dean broke the bathroom door down, barging in, ready to murder. "What is it?" he demanded, the demon blade in his hand, his body tense, poised to attack, Cas right behind him, arms at his sides, an intense frown on his face. Alex was backed up against the far wall of the tiny bathroom, staring at the shower in absolute fear, clutching a motel towel to her dripping wet body. She looked terrified. "What, Alex? _Where_?" Dean demanded, looking all around and not seeing anything, and getting rattled, fast.

"A spider! A huge, _freaking_, spider!" she screeched. Dean's alarm immediately lapsed into disbelieving annoyance, and the blade, which had been raised high, thumped to his side as he threw his other arm out in disbelief. "Oh my _God_, Al, _really_?" He looked entirely pissed, staring down his frightened sister. "_Dammit!_ Seriously?"

Castiel, puzzled, looked from Dean to Alex.

"It _crawled _on me!" Alex protested emphatically, as if such horrors had never fallen anyone else in the world. She looked at Dean, frozen in fear, clearly waiting for him to make a move, begging him with her eyes. "Dean! _Kill it_!"

Dean chuckled airily, shook his head, gave her a 'sorry, not sorry' kind of expression. "You know what? I'm done killing spiders and roaches for you. You can gank a vamp, a zombie, a demon… you can definitely handle a little spider."

Alex's expression stilled in complete and utter betrayal—as if he had just signed her death warrant. "_Dean_," she pleaded, but he just shook his head and crossed his arms, giving her a challenging look. Alex looked to Cas, who of course she had noticed but hadn't really acknowledged yet—and frowned—Cas was… what was he staring at? His eyes jumped up from—what had he been looking at? Her legs? She didn't have more time to think about it. He met her gaze his face set like stone, his chin raised. He looked intense. "Where is this spider? I will destroy it."

"The shower," she replied feebly, and he stepped forward, his hand raised, his face rigid. There was a sickening squelch sound somewhere inside the shower and Dean, grimacing, peeked his head over into the stall. "_Eugh_. You're a real hero, Cas," he commented, smirking back back at Alex. She gave him an unamused look.

Cas, however, had straightened, turned, and was looking at her in honest confusion. "Why does a small arachnid strike such fear into you?"

"Oh, she's the biggest damn baby on earth when it comes to spiders, man. No reason why. Drives me crazy." He suddenly, finally seemed to realize the extent of Alex's undress and an awkward expression passed over his face. He grabbed Cas by his shoulders, pushing him out. "Move along, Cas, nothing to see here." He then chuckled, as if he'd said something extremely funny—apparently the joke was either that she was not appealing enough to warrant attention, or that Cas was asexual. Either way, she wasn't laughing, she was just scowling.

Cas, perplexed as usual, was looking at Alex over his shoulder as Dean pushed him out of the bathroom and past the door that was barely hanging onto the frame by its cracked hinge.

Alex timidly dared a peek into the shower, where she saw the dark splat on the tiled wall. _Ugh. Spiders._

* * *

Dressed and decent, Alex joined Cas and Dean in the main room. She had run a comb through her hair, and it was quickly air-drying into its normal state of unkept, wavy disarray. Cas and Dean looked like they were ready to go somewhere, like they had been waiting around for her. "What's going on?" she asked, adjusting her tank top a little bit, not entirely sure where Cas had come from this time or what he wanted.

Dean had a smug little smile on his face. "Cas here says Raphael can help us find _God_."

Alex looked at the angel. After Cas's sudden appearance in the bathroom of all places, she had been reminded that the last time she'd seen him, she'd ripped him a new one. That made for a slightly awkward atmosphere. However, he looked the same as usual. Just, _there_, not really emotional, not really affected. "And who's Raphael?"

"The Archangel who killed me," Cas replied. Alex's eyebrows shot up. "Whoa, and you want to go find him?" She made puzzled a face. "Don't you, y'know, like being alive?"

"We need information, which Raphael possesses," he said intensely, not responding to her humorous tone. "We will trap and interrogate him, and he will tell us where God is."

_Okaaay..._ that sounded crazy. Alex rubbed her forehead briefly. "Okay, aside from the fact that that is a longshot…" she turned and looked at her brother, "Dean, you're actually down for this suicide mission?"

"Yeah, why not," he said, grinning with that ever-present sarcastic attitude. "Sounds like a good time." At her bitchy expression, he grudgingly dropped the act. "Look, it can't hurt to see if this guy knows something—anything—about all this Michael's vessel, God crap."

Point taken. But there was something else Alex didn't understand. She turned back to Cas. "Okay, but why do you need _us_ for this, Cas?"

"To find Raphael…" he said slowly, grimly, as if preparing to reveal some dark truth, "I'll have to... talk. To people."

Alex's head tilted to the side, a hesitant little smile on her face—she hadn't expected him to say _that_. It was almost cute, the obvious dread and anxiety. This was the guy who had shattered all the lights in a room when she saw him the first time. The one who could smite demons with a single touch, the one who dragged her brother out of the mouth of Hell, the one who had given her a voice, the ability to speak. Basically, one of the most powerful beings she could think of. And yet, there he stood, basically implying that talking to people was the most unthinkably difficult thing in the world. Dean, too, was chuckling, and opening the door to the motel. "Come on, kids. Let's blow this popsicle stand," he said, his keys jingling. Alex paused, glanced at Cas. "What, aren't we going to take the angel railway?"

"Dean refuses. He cited chronic constipation," Castiel replied.

"Wha…?" Alex asked, looking at her brother weirdly. "Last time he zapped me somewhere, I didn't poop for a week!" Dean grumbled. Alex made a face that clearly said 'did _not_ want to know that.'

As Alex exited the room, Cas behind her, Dean tossed the keys at her without warning, and unprepared, she barely stopped them from hitting her in the face.

"Listen, I am tired as crap," Dean said. "Alex, you're driving."

She tried to remember the last time she had driven the Impala and looked at Dean oddly. "Serious?"

Annoyed by her, he yanked open the back door. "I need a friggin' nap, okay?"

"Uh, yeah, okay." She paused at the driver's side. Cas stared at her with his usual, stern expression over the top of the car. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Waterville, Maine," Cas said. "Where a deputy officer laid eyes on the Archangel."

* * *

The car ride was quiet in the beginning. Music played on the radio, Alex mostly kept her eyes on the road, driving with one hand. The windows were cracked slightly, ruffling her loose hair a little in the breeze. Dean snored lightly, sprawled awkwardly across the back seat with an arm over his eyes. Castiel found it difficult to believe this monotonous mode of transportation was how the Winchester family traveled. It was taking far too long, and they had only been traveling for about an hour. But Dean had insisted, hadn't he? And Castiel had known trying to talk the fiercely headstrong man out of a decision was probably futile.

On the radio, a man was singing, or at least, that's what Castiel knew that was what the sound was_ supposed_ to be. However, it was more like a shouting, grunting shriek combined with growling. _Finished with my woman 'cause she couldn't help me with my mind, people think I'm insane because I am frowning all the time._ Castiel was perplexed, not able to follow the message of the words. The loud, repeating sound of a gritty, distorted instrument combined with the man's screeching voice was not pleasant. In fact, it was beginning to grate on him. As if reading his mind, Alex reached for a knob on the dashboard and turned the music down almost all the way.

"So, I was thinking," Alex said, her voice breaking the long silence. Castiel turned his head toward her slightly, appraisingly. "What I said to you at the hospital last week…" she trailed off, her eyes squinted up in something like a grimace as she kept her eyes on the road. "Maybe I was a little harsh." She glanced at him. Castiel realized that was her indicating it was his turn to speak.

He looked straight ahead of himself again. "I've considered what you said to me." And he had. At the moment Castiel had said the things he did to Dean—about the Apocalypse, about how it was Dean, Sam, Alex's fault, that in helping them he had lost everything—he had _known_ and believed he was justified, right, and without error—until Alex had stood up and with words alone, torn down every single confidence he'd possessed; opened up a doorway of self-doubt that he hadn't been able to close since then. Mostly, because he had realized and decided she was right; that he had more fault in what had happened than he had wanted to admit to himself.

Coming to terms with that had been oddly painful. It made him dislike something inherently about himself. Seeing and recognizing that he had unknowingly been filled with pride, among other sins, was agonizing. He had believed he was without fault, that the state of heaven was still pure and holy, despite all the signs that pointed to that being far from true.

So, now, Castiel had resolved himself to make everything right again. He would find God, who could cleanse the heavens of these unfaithful angels who would seek their own gain. And then he would finally be rewarded for his long-suffering faith and devotion, for his loyalty despite the turmoil engulfing heaven. He would see and be seen, he would stand in the presence of his divine Father's love that he longed so completely for. And then he would hear, from the mouth of God himself: _Well done, Good and Faithful servant. _Then, and only then, would he be free from the transgressions he had committed in recent times.

Castiel stared out the window in silence, until Alex cleared her throat. He glanced at her distractedly. She seemed to want to continue talking. "Listen, I've been wondering about something... when Jimmy was Jimmy, and laying there dying, he told me he knew why about something. What did he mean?"

There was a long pause. Castiel had hoped she wouldn't ask this question. He let out a heavy breath through his nose. "Jimmy Novak _thought_ he knew why I left my vessel," he said darkly, not wanting to speak of the truth.

Castiel knew that Jimmy had seen. The man had seen _everything_. How the angels had come to him and ripped Castiel out without mercy, without hesitation. Jimmy had seen and remembered the moment when Castiel had been confronted by his brethren and been commanded to go with them—_now_. They told him that he felt too much, that he was walking a dangerous line, that they knew was considering disobedience. That the Seer angels in Heaven saw dark things in his future, forbidden things. Castiel still wondered if that were true or not, or more lies. Heaven was in shambles, no longer governed by God, but by angels. _Mere angels._ Castiel had been so blind and lost, for so long. So desperate to believe that God was truly in control. And that had been another lie on an ever-lengthening list.

He remembered the night Alex had been intoxicated—that had been the tipping point. She had voluntarily spilled out her private thoughts and pains to him, he had listened, not entirely understanding why she was trying to hurt herself further, only understanding that the things she told him were somehow connected to why she was trying to drink herself to death. He had intervened, taking the alcohol from her, a snap decision. He hadn't even thought, he had just reacted. A dangerous road to take.

Later, the angels would tell him he had no place even being there that night, no place involving himself. That because he had gone to Alex for no specific reason given of heaven, the only reason he could logically have for going there was for his _own _purposes—and that was unacceptable, dangerous, forbidden. They then discovered that he had been visiting Dean and Alex in dreams, that he had built small friendships with them.

Castiel had tangibly felt heaven closing in on him in those hours leading up to when he would be taken from his vessel. Feeling cornered, convinced, even a little desperate… he decided to warn Dean. To tell him and his family about the angel's plans to let Lucifer rise. Because above all else, Castiel felt that was wrong. Maybe it wasn't his place to question it, but he hadn't been able _not _to question it. But before he could warn the Winchesters, he was yanked out of his vessel, punished painfully, warned severely. They wouldn't warn him again, they said—they would kill him next time. So Castiel accepted the lies they told him, despite his intuitions, his doubts, that said otherwise. He hadn't known what else to do. There was nothing else for him except his existence as an angel. What other choice did he have?

So, that was what Jimmy Novak knew. Castiel wasn't sure why the man had wanted to tell Alex at all, why he had felt she should know. At the time, Castiel had been in the vessel of Claire Novak. Walking around inside the body of a child had been strange and different in comparison to the vessel of Jimmy Novak. The world had seemed larger, and he remembered looking at the hands, puzzled by how small and soft they were. Dean had looked different to him, Alex had looked different. He had looked at them and felt almost nothing. And then, he had returned to the vessel of Jimmy Novak, and immediately, everything he thought he had left behind came rushing back, as if it were burned or imprinted into the vessel itself.

There were problems with Jimmy's vessel. He had continued to have problems with it, even today. Earlier that day, he had noticed more malfunctions and strange sensations. Castiel remembered the sight of Alex, wrapped only in a small towel—her dark hair dripping wet, beads of water flecked all over her bare arms, legs, neck, a few little rivulets running down the space between the hollow dip of her collarbone, and the soft, shadowed space made where her breasts met, pressed together, disappeared below the towel... which had seemed far too small a piece of fabric to cover her well at all, the slit where the towel separated showing the skin of her upper thigh. Cas swallowed hard, suddenly aware that his body—his _vessel_—was malfunctioning _again_. He looked down at his lap, slightly worried, not sure what was happening to him.

"So is he still in there somewhere?"

The sound of Alex's voice next to him genuinely startled him. "What?" Castiel asked, shifting, looking at Alex, feeling a rising sense of anxiety, or maybe embarrassment. He couldn't remember what she was talking about, or what he had been thinking, or even what the question before that had been.

Busy driving, she didn't notice anything off. "Jimmy. Is he still… you know… somewhere in there."

Castiel, still distracted, scowled more deeply. "What concern is that of yours?"

She shrugged, a little defensive. "I dunno... I was just asking. He seemed like a pretty nice guy. He loved his wife and kid, told us he just wanted to go back to his normal life…" she sounded oddly pensive. "I liked him. He was a nice guy." Castiel didn't understand why she sounded that way. He was staring off ahead into the distance, considering his answer.

"Yes. There is a small part of this vessel that retains what made Jimmy Novak, _Jimmy Novak_. Memories. Opinions. Experiences. I can see everything he was, and it still remains. But all of those things are overpowered and dwarfed by the sheer, uninhibited power of my magnificent celestial presence inside this vessel."

She laughed at that, then tried to compose herself. "Okay. Magnificent celestial presence."

Castiel didn't understand. "Why does that amuse you?"

She was still grinning, kind of lopsidedly, the smile crinkling the edges of her eyes. She shrugged, and he watched the way her shoulders moved. "Just... the way you say things sometimes."

"I often don't understand social contexts," Cas said plainly.

"_Really_?" Alex asked, the tone of her voice different than it had been before.

"Yes, re—" he paused, then stopped, catching on. He shut his mouth, nodded, then looked out at the road again, the smallest smile on his lips as he realized that he _understood_. "That was sarcasm."

"Ding ding ding," Alex commented, smiling as she watched the road ahead. The silence between them seemed more comfortable after that. A few more long moments passed before Alex spoke again. "So, Cas, if this Raphael guy is an Archangel, what kind are you? If that's not too personal."

Castiel glanced at her sidelong, her question almost startling him. She waited for an answer, and he frowned slightly. "In the beginning, when I was first established, I was a Watcher. I was tasked with the honor of bearing witness to the events which unfolded in this universe." He remembered those years with an unexpected burst of pride, of fondness. He had known his role, and he had carried it out. It was simple; it was pure, he had never faltered or failed. The good feelings faded as he remembered how everything changed and fell apart. He looked down. "More recently… I don't know."

Alex was quiet, a thoughtful frown on her face. She glanced at him, her expression making it seem that she was thinking something very intense, or personal. "Kicked out of your family. Forced to make your own way cuz they gave you no other choice. Yeah. I can see why you feel alone."

That comment surprised him. "I didn't say that I felt alone."

She shrugged simply, watching the road. "You didn't have to."

Castiel looked at her profile for a couple more seconds, then shifted in the seat, looked away. That comment bothered him, got under his skin. Made his mind turn to places he didn't want to go. More silence passed, and he sighed restlessly. "Traveling this way is truly cumbersome."

Alex gave him an unsympathetic glance. "Try almost thirty years of it, _then_ complain to me about it." She glanced down at the display in front of her and muttered something about needing gas, and they pulled into a station. She got out and began filling the vehicle's tank with gasoline, leaving Castiel to himself. Dean was still knocked out in the back, his wheezing snore a steadfast rhythm that Castiel was beginning to find irksome. He clenched his hands, focusing on the feeling of squeezing the fingers into fists, relaxing them, then squeezing again. The sound of Dean's snores was becoming unbearable.

Alex finished putting gas into the tank and strode across the pavement into the convenience store. Castiel watched out of the corner of his eye. She had this certain way, indescribable, about the way she walked that he found intriguing. He had noticed it before, and studied it yet again. It was a kind of long, loping, confident but unaware stride, like she knew where she was going. Other women didn't walk that way, they pranced, they ambled, they strutted, they flounced. She had her own way that he had never really seen before. He had decided that he liked it.

A minute later Alex appeared again, some brightly colored packets in her hand. She squinted against the noonday sun and when she got back into the car, handed him one of the packets to him. It said "Hostess CupCakes."

"Want one? These are my favorite." She tossed a pack of them back at Dean without looking, where it hit her brother in the chin. He started, groaned in confused protest, then stilled again. Cas handed the crinkling packet back to Alex. "I do not require sustenance."

"You don't even wanna try it?" she asked, giving him a look as she ripped hers open.

"No." As an afterthought, he added, "thank you."

She was already chomping into her cupcake without ceremony as they sat there in the unmoving car. He intently watched the way she chewed, licked some icing off her finger. She looked at him oddly, opened her mouth to say something, and then dropped the cupcake, where it splatted onto the seat right beside her thigh.

"Oh _shit_," she hissed, and grabbed the cupcake up, looked back at Dean, her expression fearful. She tossed the smushed cupcake out the window and reached into the glove compartment, her arm brushing against Castiel's upper thigh as she dug for something. There again, his vessel reacted immediately, with the same horrifying, dizzying, unexplained sensation, and he went tense, not sure what to do. Before he had time to panic, she had already grabbed a few napkins out of the compartment and was scrubbing at the seat, repeating the word "_shit_" over and over again, panicked. Castiel watched, intrigued, forgetting his momentary panic.

After a few more swipes of the napkin, she seemed to be satisfied and sighed, sounding relieved. "Dean would_ kill_ me if he saw that just happened," she said, seeing his perplexed expression. "Do me a favor and don't tell Dean that just happened."

Castiel tilted his head to the side, trying to make sure he understood right. "You want me to lie?"

She held out her pinky, eyebrows raised. "Just pinky promise. That you won't tell him." He looked at her blankly. "What is a... pinky promise?"

She held out her pinky and wiggled it, nodding at him as if to say 'now you.' He held his out in similar fashion and she hooked hers through, pulling their fingers against each other's tightly. She spoke in a low, serious voice, and her expression became intense. "It's an unflinching bond agreement between two beings. Forever binding. You break a pinky promise, the wrath of the universe will reign down on your poor, lost soul." Castiel felt his mouth open slightly—why had he never heard of this all-powerful binding 'pinky promise'? Alex's grim expression suddenly dissolved into chuckles and a laugh, and Castiel narrowed his eyes, not sure what—and then, suddenly, he understood, and was surprised that he understood. A pleased little expression came over his face. "You were joking just now. About the wrath of the universe."

She smiled again, and again, the corners of her eyes wrinkled. "Yup. But seriously. Don't tell Dean."

Castiel just smiled slightly and looked out the window again as the car started and rolled out of the station. He had just learned a little about humor and sarcasm. Perhaps, in time, he _would _learn to master the subtleties of human interaction and conversation.

He glanced at Alex out of the corner of his eye, realizing how much better he liked this side of her. The side that wasn't always angry with him, accusing him of things, blowing him over in the wake of her fury and wrath. Today, she had joked with him, and he had actually understood. She had smiled at him, and it had been real. He remembered a time, not long ago, when he told her that he wasn't her friend, that their relationship, in whatever context, was over—he'd said those things to remain faithful to Heaven, to save his own skin. But now, he'd rebelled. He'd been cut off from Heaven. He didn't have to lie to himself or them anymore. He no longer had to pretend he didn't want to have relationships with Dean and Alex, and there was something freeing about that.

There was something different about them. Both of them. He glanced to his left. But especially her. Then... he'd always known that.

* * *

**Late That Night**

Alex kicked over a broken chair in the abandoned house they were staying in. Dean was downing beers and pacing around, bored. They had visited the Waterville Police Department and found out, with some digging, that Raphael's vessel was a man who was committed. Taking Cas along as a third FBI agent had been a disastrous idea—the guy was seriously a trip, and had almost given them away, like ten times. However, it made for some funny memories. Alex shook her head as she remembered Cas holding his FBI ID upside down. He was so clueless. After finding out who Raphael's vessel was and where the man lived, they had gone to the psychiatric ward where he resided. They found the man, empty and glazed over, with Raphael no longer possessing him. But Cas had insisted he knew how to conjure Raphael, had done some strange Enochian chant, then said tomorrow, the ritual would play out. After that, he disappeared and been gone for hours. And Dean and Alex were just kind of sitting around, not sure what to do, each with their own thoughts on what might happen tomorrow for better or worse.

As if on cue, Castiel suddenly appeared in the room, holding an ancient looking clay jar. "Where've you been?" Dean asked. "Jerusalem," the angel replied simply.

"What's in that?" Alex asked as he set the jar on the table. Cas seemed distracted. "It's oil. It's very special. Very rare."

Dean smirked. "Okay, so we trap Raphael with a nice vinaigrette?" Castiel sat down in a chair and gave him a short look. "No."

"Tell me something. You keep saying we're gonna trap this guy. Isn't that kinda like trapping a hurricane with a butterfly net?"

"No, it's harder," Cas said. Dean looked a little put off. "Do we really have any chance of surviving this?"

Cas finally looked up fully, his expression neutral. "You two do. An Archangel will not touch Michael's vessel, nor a child of God under divine protection."

"Are you saying you're dead meat?" Alex asked, not liking the implication. "In all likelihood, yes," he said apathetically. She looked at him seriously. "I don't know if I'm okay with that."

He was avoiding looking at either of them again. "There is nothing to be 'okay' about. It must be done. I have to do it. I have to take responsibility."

There was a short, tense silence. "Well. Last night on earth!" Dean said. "What are your plans?"

There was another pause, as if Cas hadn't thought that far ahead. "I just thought I'd sit here quietly."

That comment, said so despondently, made Alex smile in the softest of ways as she took a swig of her beer. Dean, however, was not about to let that go. "Come on, anything? Booze?" He paused, his tone lowered, a smile on his face and voice. "_Women_?"

Castiel looked at Dean, suddenly very visibly uncomfortable. Dean looked shocked. "You _have _been with women before... right? Or an angel, at least?"

Alex froze mid-gulp of her beer, her eyes darting to Cas, who said nothing, only looked even more distressed. Dean didn't stop. "You mean to tell me you've never been up there doing a little cloud-seeding?" he asked in amused disbelief. Cas seemed almost riled by the line of questioning. "I've never had occasion, okay?" Alex recognized that look on his face, she thought. Embarrassment, just wanting to disappear.

"Dean… leave the poor guy alone," she said, to which Dean only shook his head, looking determined. "No way." He looked at Cas pointedly. "Let me tell you something. There are two things I know for certain. One, Bert and Ernie are gay. Two, you are not gonna die a virgin. Not on my watch."

"Oh my God, _really, _Dean?" Alex asked, not sure whether to laugh or roll her eyes at Dean's stupid, frat boy antics. She was getting uncomfortable, and fast, and decided it was time for her to leave this particular conversation. She walked out of the house.

Cas stood as Alex left, his expression strange, almost afraid. "Dean, I don't think that—"

"I don't care what you think, bud," Dean said, grabbing his jacket. "You need to get laid, and pronto."

"But why?" Castiel asked, confused.

"Because you're a _virgin_!" Dean exclaimed, as if being a virgin were a horrible disease. Castiel's eyes narrowed as the wheels in his head turned. "Dean, I don't understand why you are so adamant about me losing my virginity. Why haven't you shown the same concern for Alex's virginity?"

Dean did a double take. "_What_?" He fumbled a minute. "How the hell do you know_ that _about her?"

Castiel just raised his chin a little bit. "I know everything about her body. And yours. And any other body I encounter. You had your tonsils removed at age fifteen, and—"

"Okay, okay, I get it. Wow," Dean said, rolling his eyes, then reflecting briefly, kind of stunned by this revelation. "Well, I was pretty sure she was, you know, a virgin but… I wasn't totally sure… well, that's a relief."

"A relief?" Cas asked, becoming more puzzled by the second by the double-standards. "You're not anxious to… 'get her laid'?"

"Hey! Don't talk that way about my sister," Dean snapped, approaching the angel. Cas's eyes narrowed, his head tilted to the side, he frowned. "But if virginity is such a stigma, and both she and I are virgins, then surely we—"

Dean's jaw almost hit the floor. "No. No, no,_ NO_. Lemme stop you right there, cuz I don't like where you're going with that line of logic… Cas! _No_! You hear me? No, don't even imply that. Oh my _God_!" He was reeling in a fit of protective, brotherly rage, bearing down on Cas with a vengeance. "No one, I mean _no one_, is ever going to have sex with Alex. You hear me?"

"Yes, of course I hear you. My ears function perfectly. But I don't understand…"

"Understand this," Dean growled. "Any guy who so much as thinks about touching my little sister is _dead_. Six feet under, dead. She is never, ever, ever, ever… EVER… having sex, understand?"

Clearly, the angel did not. Dean sighed, regulating. "Whatever, Cas. I haven't changed my mind. Now let's go find you a woman to make you into a real man."

Dean went outside, Castiel reluctantly following. They found Alex huffing on a cigarette, pacing the yard. Dean stalked up to her and snatched the cigarette out of her mouth without ceremony and threw it to the ground, stamping on it with his foot. "Hey!" she protested, even as he shoved his hand into her jacket pocket, pulling out a pack of smokes. He wagged it at her angrily. "I thought I told you to stop this crap two days ago!" He drew back his arm and flung it as far as he could into the dark night. "_Hey_!" she protested again, looking pissed. But Dean was even more angry than she was, and pointed a warning finger at her. "You stop this crap, okay? Dad would kill you if he saw you smoking! It's a friggin' horrible habit!"

"Thanks for the morality lecture, Mr. Family Values," Alex retorted angrily. He made no comment, just gave her a wan look and then turned toward the Impala. "We'll be back."

"Uh no," Alex said, stopping him short. "You got to be crazy if you think I'm staying at this creepy ass house all by myself." She looked at Cas, who looked distinctly panicked, standing there, an oddly alarmed kind of expression growing on his face, his arms hanging at his sides. She swallowed, looked at Dean, who looked less than enthused. "Plus, you know, uh... moral support?"

"Yeah, fine, whatever," Dean said, and got into the car with a slam of the door. Alex and Cas just looked at each other for a short, strange moment. She almost thought of telling him not to go. He almost looked like he was waiting for her to say the words. But then Dean hollered an impatient "move your asses!" and they complied.

* * *

Low, thumping music pulsed through the "strip club" that was clearly a lot more than that. Seated at a flimsy table near the stage where strippers swayed and sashayed, Dean leaned over the table and fixed Cas with a commanding stare. "Hey. Relax."

"This is a den of _iniquity_," Castiel said nervously. "I should not be here."

"Dude, you full-on rebelled against heaven. Iniquity is one of the perks." Nearby, one of the women had set her sights on them. With an enormous amount of grace and poise, Dean pointed at Cas animatedly, and waved the hooker over like he was hitching a ride on the highway. "Showtime." Cas seemed to shrink a little into his chair.

Alex wanted to crawl in a hole and die. She just pulled her huge mug of beer close in both hands, lips on the rim. Dean was so ridiculous. "Hi," the woman said softly, flirtatiously, looking at Cas with wide, suggestive eyes. "What's _your_ name?"

Castiel tried not to look at the woman, but Alex kind of just stared at her. She was wearing almost nothing—just a sheer, gauzy white lingerie thing, her huge breasts pushed up oddly, squished together with a huge, garish bow in the center. She had unnaturally blonde hair and eyes lined heavily in black, her eyebrows looked painted on, her skin was an orange kind of color. She didn't look real at all or like she had much going on in the general area of her brain, but somehow, Alex was still intimidated.

"Cas," Dean put in for the silent angel. "His name is Cas." He leaned forward, a playful, coy smile on his face. "What's_ your _name?"

"Chastity," she purred.

"That's friggin' rich," Alex mumbled into her lukewarm beer. Next to her, Castiel shakily lifted his mug of beer and gulped it down fast, earning a slightly perplexed look from Alex. Dean, however, was looking at Chastity, grinning. "Well, he likes you, you like him, so—" he spread his hands out. "_Dayenu_!"

"No, I don—" Cas started, but Chastity was tugging Cas up by the hand. "Come on, baby."

Alex thought her tight grip on her mug of beer might shatter the glass at that. Was that really it? This was actually happening? Didn't Dean get how jacked up this was? How weird and just… _wrong_?! Apparently not. Dean stood up and smacked a bunch of bills into Cas's chest. "Hey, listen. Take this. If she asks for a credit card, say no. Now just stick to the basics, okay? Do not order off the menu. Go get her, tiger." Wow. Dean knew way too much about this.

Cas looked back at Alex, full of alarm, and as a result, she began to feel the same way. Just, panicked and totally freaked out. Alex looked at him wordlessly, trying to let him know, silently, if he had said the word, she would have laid that skank out right then and there. But Dean stepped forward a little, blocking their view of each other. "Cas, don't make me push you."

Alex stood and pushed forward, finally speaking up, realizing this was her last chance. "You don't have to, Cas, if you don't want to," she said, and gulping, he looked at her. Beside him, Chastity looked a little confused, looking at Alex for the first time.

"Don't listen to Princess Party Pooper over here," Dean said, physically pushing Cas backward a little bit. "I know you want to, now _go_!"

And he did, leaving Alex to watch, slack-jawed, as Chastity led him into the back. The hooker giggled and held him by the hand, he stared straight ahead, looking like he was on a death march. They disappeared and Alex looked at Dean, who was sitting back down, pleased with himself. "I don't like this, Dean."

"Ah, come on," he said, verbally swatting her away, taking a sip of his beer. "Lighten up. Even angels need to get some."

"Shut your face," she retorted, and stared at the door where Cas and Chastity had gone through. She pictured herself striding through that door, ripping that hooker off of Cas and throwing her across the room. _What the hell!_ Alex wasn't sure why this was getting under her skin so badly. Clenching her jaw, Alex she shook her head at herself and in frustration, knocked a chair over, grabbed her beer, went to the opposite end of the club, ignoring Dean and sliding into a quiet, dark corner booth, stewing over her beer, trying to decide if she should go in after Castiel or not. It was literally ten seconds after she'd sat down that a crusty redneck trucker-looking guy in his 40s sidled up to her. "Hey sweetheart. You here to watch the show? That's kinda hot."

Alex gave him a harsh look,_ not _in the mood to deal with assholes. "Screw off, dude."

Instead, he sat down there at the booth with her, grinning, looking her up and down appraisingly. "I mean, if you're looking for a good time, I uh, would love to get to know you." Getting real agitated, real quick, Alex refused to look at the guy, just stared away pointedly, trying to control herself. "Listen, man. I'm not interested. Not now, not ever, so get lost."

He scooted a little closer, trying to wrap his arm around her. "Come on baby, just lemme buy you a drink, that's all."

She shot him a dangerous glare, shoved his arm away. The guy seemed to be amused by her agitation, like he found it cute. She raised a single eyebrow, gave him one last warning, her expression deadly. Below the table, her hand was sliding down to the back of her jeans, where her knife was tucked into its sheath. Her fingers wrapped around the handle. "I said, _leave—me—alone_."

"Don't be like that, sweetie—" the guy said, but never finished his sentence. In a blur of motion, Alex stabbed her hunting knife down into the table, right between his fingers with a sickening _thwack, _missing cutting off his middle finger by millimeters. The guy yanked his hand away, flailed backwards, stared at her in total shock. She was still gripping the hilt of the knife and leaned forward a little bit, into his face. "Unless you wanna lose a limb, _baby_… back… off." She yanked the knife out of the table even as he stumbled out of the booth, shaken and terrified. "You crazy _bitch_!" He said, even as he practically ran the opposite direction.

She chuckled at that, put her knife back in its sheath. "Like I haven't gotten_ that_ one before," she commented to herself, and returned to her beer… then noticed Dean had disappeared. Where the hell was he? Probably in the back… ugh. Even if that asshole trucker guy had been barking up the wrong tree, at least he'd distracted her for a second. Alex tried not to think of what that hooker chick would be doing to Cas right about now—_oh my God_, and what would _he_ be doing? She stared at the mug of beer in front of her, her stomach churning. This sucked. Why did she come along? What the hell was she thinking? Alex couldn't stand it any more and she stood up, threw her beer glass at the wall, where it shattered, and she stalked out of the club under the questioning, startled gazes of patrons and strippers alike. She didn't take much notice.

She was too busy imagining Cas, that stupid, plastic woman all over him, pulling off his clothes. At first, she pictured him terrified, laying there, afraid for his life, cowering, wide-eyed as the evil hooker crawled onto him like a bug. That was a bad mental image, but the next one was far worse, and on the opposite end of the spectrum. She pictured Castiel hungrily sweeping Chastity up into his strong arms, throwing her down on the bed roughly, ripping her lingerie off, taking her passionately like the characters in the romance novels. Both images made her want to rip someone's eyes out. She ran a hand through her hair in agitation, reaching the end of the building where the alleyway started.

She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see the guy from the club and another guy. Oh shit—she recognized that angry, vengeful glint in his eye, and turned to make a run for it, but he caught her by the wrist, then shoved her up against the wall in the dark alleyway. "You crazy, dumb bitch! No one tries to cut my fingers off!"

"Oh, is that right, Billy Joe Bob?" Alex asked cooly. He seemed momentarily confused by her calm, nonchalant demeanor. And then, he was doubled over after she violently kneed him in the balls and smashed him in the top of the head with her elbow. She broke out of his grip, only to get grabbed by the second guy, who bear-hugged her, pretty much disabling her completely. The first guy had already recovered from her assault, and helped his buddy slam her back against the wall. Both of the men held her there against the wall, not just her arms, but her legs. She glowered.

"Hey!" Came a thundering shout—Dean? Then a low, threatening voice—Castiel. "Get away from her. _Now._"

Her attackers turned, and Alex could see her brother, murderous, and Castiel, devastating. They were coming closer, and fast.

"Why, what are you gonna do?" Asked the first guy, but even before he finished, Cas had reached out and practically ripped him off of Alex; threw him across the alley with brutal force where he smashed into some dumpsters and ceased to move. Dean had simultaneously grabbed the second guy and bashed him in the face with his fist, knocking him out cold in one violent, enraged punch. In all, the boys made quick work of the guys in all of ten seconds.

Alex couldn't help it. She was impressed, and looked at Cas in a mixture of appreciation and then, dread… she took in his loose tie, the trench coat all askew, his partially unbuckled belt. She swallowed. He was oblivious to her wandering, questioning gaze and had grasped her just above the elbow, looking at her sternly, leaning in, his eyes demanding a quick answer to his questions. "Are you injured?" he asked, his voice low and deadly. "Did these men hurt you?"

"No, I—"

Dean pushed Cas aside, looking at Alex with a horrified, savage expression. "You okay? What were they—" Crowded, Alex held her hands up, palms facing them, as if to tell them to back up. "I'm fine. I'm _fine_. I totally had that." She straightened a little, gave Cas a questioning look. "That didn't take you very long."

He remained silent, obviously not understanding the implication. Dean chuckled. "Yeah, so, Cas scared off the girl with all his ESP stuff. Messed the whole thing up."

"Oh," Alex said. "So no…" she shook her head, trying to appear like she was searching for the words, trying to appear like it didn't matter either way. "No, consummation, or…"

"Wow, come to the current century, Chaucer," Dean commented and Alex rolled her eyes, brushed past them and went over to the unconscious form of one of the guys who had attacked her. She yanked him over onto his stomach, sticking her hand in his back pocket. Cas looked stunned. "What are you doing?"

Pulling out the guy's wallet, she wagged it at him. "Hey, the guy needs to make the pain in my ass he's been worth my while." She pulled out several hundred dollar bills, impressed. "Not bad."

Dean was going through the other guy's wallet, Castiel came to Alex, who was counting bills, and fixed her with a stern expression. "They had foul intentions for you. You shouldn't be so nonchalant."

"Relax, Cas. Everything's fine," she said. His intensity didn't waver. "No, I shouldn't have allowed Dean to distract me." His expression changed, slightly, and she didn't know how to interpret it. "My duty is to _protect_ you." It was said so vehemently, and combined with his gaze, she brushed past him to avoid looking at him. "I protect _myself_," she said, a little hostilely.

"Like you just did a minute ago?" He asked. She stopped and turned, head tilted to the side. "Cas… was that... sarcasm?" She cracked a grin at him. "The student has become the master."

He just frowned. "I don't understand your reference."

"Of course you don't," she said, her tone decidedly fond. She smiled again, a crooked little quirked smile, and on a whim, reached out and fixed his tie, carefully sliding the knot back up to its rightful place. Her thumb just barely brushed against the skin of his neck, and somehow, that simple, mistaken touch made her smile fade. And then she made the mistake of looking at him. His eyes were locked on hers, and it suddenly felt oddly awkward, intense. Alex's expression fell completely and she pulled away, unsure, weirded out.

"Dude, this guy has a bunch of church business cards in his wallet," Dean said, clearly amused at his findings in the guy's wallet, oblivious to Cas and Alex. Alex, a little shaken, turned away silently and began leading the way to the Impala, her hands in her pockets, leaving the guys to lag behind a little bit.

"Man, I mean, I still think we should try again," Dean said to Cas, pocketing the cash he'd taken from the guy's wallet. "There's more clubs around here, and—"

"No, Dean," Castiel said, almost wearily, as they began walking to the car.

"Aw don't be like that, Cas. I still don't get why you didn't make it with Chastity. I mean, dude, she was beautiful!"

"No, she was not," Cas replied.

"Oh, come on, you have nothing to judge her against," Dean scoffed as they came to a stop at the car. Alex was already in the back seat, shutting the door behind herself. Dean looked at Cas over the top of the car. "I mean, how many women have you seen in your lifetime, like five?"

Cas's head tilted to the side just slightly, as if what Dean had suggested was ridiculous. "All of them."

Dean looked a little put off. "Touché. Well, maybe your thing isn't blondes, huh?" He chuckled. "Brunettes!" Cas's gaze faltered, his eyes sliding over to Alex. Dean, too busy laughing as he got into the car, didn't notice.

* * *

**Later That Night**

Alex sat out on the crappy, dilapidated porch of the abandoned house, not really doing anything, just staring, just awake. A few empty beer bottles were beside her, a twelve-pack she was working on. She was definitely a little buzzed. She heard the front door open behind her and listened. Heavy footsteps coming close to her. Dean came down one step below her. "Whatcha doing?"

"Nothing," she replied honestly, carelessly. He looked at her a couple beats. "You should get some rest. Big day tomorrow," he said, but she just glanced at him.

"Not tired yet."

"You're still mad about the cigarettes," he assumed. Alex made a face. Not really, but if he thought that, fine.

He sat beside her, let out a 'whoosh' of air, cleared his throat. "Right. So, awkward subject." Alex's head turned slowly, her expression quickly becoming suspicious. Dean looked highly uncomfortable. This couldn't be good.

He searched the sky, not looking at her. "Cas told me you're a… you know… a, uh, a virgin."

Alex's face went completely blank, her mouth dropping open. "What? How did he—" she stopped, seeming to remember,_ oh yeah, he always friggin' knows everything_. She rubbed the back of her neck self consciously. She didn't want to have this conversation. She tried to play it cool, tried to laugh lightly. "Yeah, fine, maybe I am." She shrugged, trying not to sound the way she felt. "Unlike you and Sam, I never really seemed to attract the opposite sex."

Dean, more awkward than she had ever seen him, clasped his hands together as he leaned over his knees. "Alex, abstinence is—"

"Oh my God." She looked at him in horror—he was_ not _about to have _the talk_ with her. "Stop. Just stop. No. Don't… don't." She let out a laugh of dry, humorless air. "_Yeah, _okay? I'm twenty-six. And I'm a virgin. You happy?" Another short, bitter, embarrassed laugh.

He cleared his throat. "Well yeah, honestly, I am."

She looked at him sharply. "_Why_?"

"Because you don't need to let any guy touch you. Ever," he replied, as if that would explain away all the years of confusion and shame.

"Wow Dean," she commented wryly. "That's... really hypocritical." He just shrugged, kind of accepting the accusation. "That's what brothers are for," he said.

She looked at him sidelong, softening. She knew he meant well. He was just an_ idiot._ "Well, I wouldn't worry yourself, Dean. I don't see much chance of me ever being even in a relationship, let alone…" she trailed off, embarrassed. "I mean, I have _no_ experience, nothing to offer. I don't even really know how to put on makeup—how to talk to a guy without offending him or making him feel stupid—I don't know how to be the kind of girl any guy, ever, would even _like_—"

Beside her, Dean looked kind of shocked, like he hadn't thought of all the things that Alex carried silently. She wasn't done yet though. She stared at the dark brown beer bottle in her hand. "I mean, let's be realistic. What man would want all of this baggage I have? I'm not normal, and I never have been."

"That's not true," Dean protested, but Alex just laughed at him, took a swig of beer. "It is. You know it is. Do you know, I have had_ one_ kiss my whole life? And it was a prank."

"What?" he asked softly.

She was smirking, as if it were a joke. "Yeah. I never told anyone. I was too embarrassed."

"Tell me," he commanded. "Now."

Her smile faded. A long silence passed, and she wasn't sure she would tell him at all. But she ended up taking in a deep breath and barreling forward. "Fifth grade. Kevin Dukes. Passed me notes in class… said he liked me. That I was pretty. I couldn't believe it." She looked down, breathed out heavily. "And, it turns out I shouldn't have."

Dean was listening in something like grim anticipation. "He took me into a classroom that I thought was empty, and kissed me… then a bunch of the kids came out from where they were hiding and watching, and then they all started to say… the most horrible things." She went quiet. Those memories still hurt as bad as they had the day they happened.

"Son of a bitch," Dean growled, visibly pissed. "You shoulda told me. I woulda kicked his ass all the way to China."

Alex looked at him directly. "Why do you think I dropped out of school, Dean? Stuff like that happened, too many times. There was nothing for me there. At any school. I had to protect myself from it."

"But you had me to do that," he protested softly, hollowly.

"Maybe," she said. "But some things, I just was too afraid to let anyone know about." She scoffed. "Kevin Dukes, a skinny little ten year old, was basically, the only guy who ever really showed an interest in me. And that interest was a total sham. Kind of gets under your skin. Makes you feel…" she trailed off, her expression pained. She couldn't seem to say anything else. Dean scooted a little closer, put a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey. You know, I want you to find a guy someday who will… take care of you and treat you good and marry you. I can see you, a couple scrappy kids, some kinda lumberjack, outdoorsy guy..." he was trying to cheer her up, say things that he thought all women wanted, but Alex just felt aversion. None of that sounded right to her.

She shook her head, correcting him. "Dean, I don't want that. I'm not sure what I want, but… not that." She tried to picture herself being a wife, or a mom. It was totally foreign, and not fitting. She was a hunter, and always would be. _That's_ what was right—and if she had to do it alone, okay.

Dean was looking at her intently. "Come on, you don't ever, you know, wanna… meet a guy… see where it goes…" He was trying, but it was making her feel worse. She chuckled humorlessly "Dean… I think the possibility of God being real is more plausible than me ever finding a guy who would want to be with me."

"But even if—" he started. "_Dean_." She said, a little loudly. She looked at him openly, pleadingly. "I don't want to talk about this with you. Not now. Probably not ever again. Please. It hurts too much." He withdrew a little, as if stung. "Can you just leave me alone? You don't have to worry about me being a virgin. I'm pretty sure I'm always gonna be one." She gave him a thin, sarcastic smile.

He got up, looking remorseful. She knew he was thinking he never should have brought up the topic. "Yeah. Yeah. I'll uh, be inside if you need anything."

"Yeah, great," she mumbled, and didn't watch as he retreated. The door shut behind him, and she was alone again. She took in a deep breath, shut her eyes, and then looked back up at the stars. And then frowned when she heard the door opening. Aggravated, she rolled her eyes. "Dean, come on, I said—" she looked up and went silent. It was Cas. A little surprised, she could only stare at him. "Oh. It's you."

"Hello Alex." He came down to her stair and sat down—and she could see that he remembered his lesson from the last time he sat next to her. He leaned his arms over his legs, casually, just like she'd shown him. That brought a little smile to her face, and she reached for the twelve-pack near her foot. "Here. Have a beer."

She cracked it open on the edge of the porch for him and handed it over. He didn't refuse it, in fact, took it, and sampled it. It was a darker beer than the one he'd had at the strip club. He took a huge gulp and a frown creased his face. "This tastes disgusting."

She just looked at him sidelong. He really was so endearing in the weirdest way. "You get used to it."

His expression got thoughtful, stone-like, and he set the bottle down. There was a long, long silence. And then, "I should have been there to protect you tonight."

Alex heaved a sigh. She should have known he wouldn't let that go. "Cas. I told you already. I've got my own back. Don't guilt trip yourself. So I get beat up sometimes, no big deal." He looked at her sharply at that comment, but said nothing else for a long moment. Then, suddenly, "Count your scars."

She turned and looked at him. What a weirdass thing to say. "What? Why?"

He looked down, his expression strange, rigid. "That's how many times you needed me and I wasn't there." Alex gave him an odd look, a little lost for words, a little more than unsure how to respond. She settled on deflection, decided to imply he was being flowery and cheesy. "Have you been reading romance novels, Cas?"

He got one of those tiny, knowing smiles on his face. "Have _you_?"

That question, combined with the look on his face almost made her jaw drop. Busted. "Uh…" what was the point of lying? She grimaced, made a face. "Yes…?"

She smiled shyly, a little embarrassed, but he was smiling, too. Just the corners of his mouth upturned, the edges of his eyes wrinkled a little. At that moment, she could have forgotten everything. They could have just been two people who had shared a funny, awkward, amusing moment. Actually, that's exactly what it was. Well, not two people. One person and an angel.

Alex took another sip of her beer, leaning back onto her elbows on the stairs, feeling a little more relaxed. "So, Cas," she said conversationally. "You're still a virgin. Dean is heartbroken."

"I'm not," he said, then seemed to consider. "Then again, I have no heart."

That comment caused her pause. "I'm not so sure," she said, and he met her gaze, looking oddly conflicted. She sat up, mimicking him, leaning over her knees, looking at no particular point in the distance in front of her. "What you did for us… disobeying Deaven and risking everything…. dying?" She paused, affected, remembering. She shook her head. "I don't think you can say you're heartless."

She looked back at him. There it was again. That intense, consuming feeling brought on by the way he looked at her. In the dark, his eyes seemed so full of so much, and it was suddenly _too_ much. Cracking under the pressure, Alex stood abruptly and went inside, leaving Cas to stare, puzzling over what he had done to make her leave like that.

Inside the dark house, Alex paced a random spot on the floor, in an empty room. Cas had said it himself. He was probably dead tomorrow. And if he died again, she couldn't afford to like him anymore than she did already. She already liked him too much, dammit. It had crept up on her.

All she knew was that, tomorrow, if he died again, it would be so much more than she could bear. She shut her eyes and put her face in her hand.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ Ummm… my brain can't handle this. Dripping wet Alex and wide-eyed Cas, friendly (not fighting?!) conversations, a cute pinky promise and a hunter scared by spiders, Dean being all crazy big brother, the whole virginity everything, Alex picking a fight in a strip club, Cas learning a little bit about humor… ahhh geez. Hopefully this chapter appeases those of you who have been dying for and asking about more Cas/Alex development, and if not, please know that the next chapter will probably kill you dead. It's almost finished and I should be posting it up in the next few days, maybe Sunday or Monday! SO. EXCITED. As lighthearted and cute as this chapter was (in places) the next one is just friggin' twisted. Bring on the angst. As I have said before, 20 is my favorite. It's just… ASLKAJSLAKJS. The feels. THE FEELS. Btw, this chapter is 11,000 words. How does that even happen. I'm ridiculous._

_What was your favorite part of this chapter? I love reading your comments, critiques, and suggestions! And, to my darling, Ethera O… I love you. Like Dean loves burgers. WE WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP! Err—ROWBOAT! _


	20. Above Us Only Sky

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 20 / Above Us Only Sky

"_Time sits on the tip of my tongue. I can trace it through your fingers. Moments lived, that I relive, is it real or am I dreaming? And I'm finding in myself the things that chase me to the corners; in the dark, far from home—the sins of longing for you."_  
- The Crash Years

* * *

**Two Days Later**

"Dean. We have _got _to stop driving." Alex was cramped, uncomfortable, and going crazy in the passenger side seat. None of all that was unusual, per se, but after sixteen friggin' hours of it, with only three or four short stops, she really was beginning to feel like she might murder someone if they didn't stop soon.

Dean was ignoring her at the moment, just like he had been all day. She waited a few more seconds and then tried again, her tone bordering on pushy. "You have been driving for a million hours straight and you haven't slept in like three days. Can we _please_ stop?"

He acknowledged her with a half eye roll, said nothing. She could tell he was tired as hell, but trying to fight it. He had a lot on his mind—guess you would after trapping an Archangel and nearly being fried by his wacky lightning powers. Alex thought back to Raphael's grand speech about God being dead, the angels who would bring the end of the world and "paradise" with it. Raphael had then suggested that they should consider that Lucifer was the one who had raised Castiel—something that had startled all three of them. That suggestion was still eating at Alex, honestly. And she could tell it had shaken Cas, too. After leaving Raphael trapped in a ring of holy fire, they'd gotten out of there. Cas, clearly disappointed and troubled by the encounter, had disappeared shortly after without saying much of anything.

"Dean," Alex prompted again, to which a muscle jerked in his cheek. "_What._"

Getting annoyed now, Alex huffed, stared at him. "What's your problem?"

"I'm tired and I've been driving all day!" He retorted. Alex gave him a wan look. "How many times did I offer to drive?" She reminded him.

He just ignored her, huffed loudly. Alex took a deep, tired breath, watched the buildings pass by outside. "So," she said. "Do you think God is dead like Raphael claimed?"

He chuckled sardonically. "Alex, I don't even think God is _real._"

"Then where did angels come from?" She asked.

"Planet Voltron," Dean retorted.

Alex patiently refrained from jabbing him in the side, thought a minute instead. "Maybe God got lost out there," she suggested. "It's a pretty big universe. Or maybe someone trapped him somewhere to get him out of the picture."

He gave her an unamused expression. "Or maybe it's all friggin' nuts and you're starting to sound looney."

"Love you too," she retorted, giving him a playful look despite his grumpy antics.

She pulled out her phone to check it for messages—usually she forgot that she even had a phone unless it rang, but after getting a text earlier that day from Cas, she was curious if she'd hear from him again. He had written **Does this message appear on your device? **After laughing about how awkwardly he had phrased himself, she had texted back, **No**. And about two minutes later, he had texted back, **What about this one?** And she and Dean had giggled uncontrollably, Dean commenting that he forgot how much fun gullible people were.

Cas kept unintentionally throwing these funny, ironic, surprising moments into their lives that somehow made the horrible, dark mess a little brighter. She almost didn't want to admit that to herself, because it was almost like they had replaced Sam with Cas, there for those two days when they were tracking Raphael, anyway. And that made her feel guilty.

After about twenty more minutes, Dean finally gave in and pulled them over onto the side of the street in front of a motel in the heart of Kansas City—Alex left all of her stuff in the Impala, Dean grabbed his backpack, and they headed inside, but not before being accosted by some religious pamphlet-passing guy asking them if they had thought about God's plan for them. If only that guy knew.

Even as they got into the room, Dean's phone rang. "Oh look, angel calling," he said sarcastically, and answered.

Alex half listened, catching snippets of Dean's side of the conversation as she crammed the contents of a pack of crackers into her mouth… at one point, Dean covered the mouthpiece and, amused, told her, "He says the _voice_ told him he's almost out of minutes." _Oh, Cas. _She finished the crackers and tossed the wrapper as Dean continued walking the length of room, still on the phone. "Yeah, uh, in Kansas City. Century Hotel, room one-thirteen. No, whoa, whoa, not _now_. There's stuff we gotta do. Like what? Like sleep! Just pop in first thing tomorrow morning." He hung up and tossed his phone onto one of the beds.

"What'd Cas want?" Alex asked, looking at Dean sidelong. Dean was taking his jacket off. "He says the Colt is still around… the demons have it… and he thinks that is what can kill the devil. We just gotta track it down."

Alex scratched her head, squinting. "And we do that _how_?" Dean groaned, scrubbing his face with his hands, clearly over her questions. "Lemme think about that in the morning." He all but crashed into one of the beds, hugged a pillow into his face, and ceased to move. Poor guy was exhausted.

Alex pulled out her phone, composing a new text message, addressing it to Sam, glancing Dean's way, feeling like she was doing something wrong. She returned her attention to the phone keyboard, poised to type—and then, nothing. She didn't know what to say. _How are you? _No, that wasn't enough. _Just took Cas to a brothel yesterday and almost chopped a guy's hand off, how are things your way? _Or, maybe, _Dean is being an asshole (what else is new) and oh btw God is dead. How's the whole demon blood problem? _She sucked in her cheeks thoughtfully, then put the phone down without sending anything.

She had no idea how to reach out to Sam, and she had this growing, ugly suspicion that he didn't want to be reached out to at all. It wouldn't be the first time. She didn't really want to believe that Sam was rejecting the family, but it had been true before, hadn't it? She pulled her jacket off and glanced at Dean—he was already snoring. She figured some sleep herself wouldn't hurt, but before she crawled into bed, she took off Dean's smelly shoes for him, grimacing against the familiar, sweaty odor. Gross. She tossed the shoes onto the floor then went to her own bed, switched off the light, fell asleep pretty fast. She dreamed that she heard Dean talking on the phone, but couldn't remember what about, or who to.

* * *

Alex opened her eyes to the morning light and immediately knew something was different—_wrong_. Below her, the bed was hard and poking into her in odd places—and when she looked, she realized why. She was laying on bedsprings. _What the_—she looked around and became even more alarmed—the room was the same room, but looked like it had been through hell and back. There was ripped, disintegrating wallpaper, debris all over the floor, cobwebs in the corners, rusted, broken lamps on the cracked bedside tables. Freaking out, Alex jumped up, shook Dean. "Dean! Wake up!" She whispered, feeling as if she needed to be on guard, like something horrible was about to happen. He was groggily blinking, then realizing what he was laying on, and he shot up. "Something's wrong," Alex said, looking around in confusion. "I mean, _wrong_."

Dean got up, looking as confused as she was. He went to the window, and she heard him murmur a soft "_what the hell?_" She joined him there and saw the street they had parked on last night—her mouth dropped open. As far as they could see, the entire city was in shambles and ruin, like there had been riots, fires, and all-out destruction. Wrecked, hollow, burned out cars, trash everywhere, graffiti all over everything, broken store windows. And not a person in sight. "What the hell _happened _last night?" she asked, stunned.

"I don't know, but we're getting outta here." Harrowed, Dean grabbed her arm, pushed her toward the door. When they got to the ground level, realized the Impala was gone, Dean's quiet panic went up two notches—Alex could tell by the way his jaw clenched and his nostrils flared that he was more freaked out than pissed. And that, in turn, freaked _her_ out. The car being gone meant that they only had the things on the things they'd taken with them into the motel room—which was only Dean's bag, as Alex had left hers in the car. So, no weapons, no car—and no clue what was going on.

Dean wandered down the street tensely, looking at everything in shocked silence. "We shouldn't be in the street," Alex whispered, trying to walk quietly. Her boots kept crunching on broken glass. Dean turned. "Did you hear that?" he cautiously headed down a wide alley way, and Alex, looking behind and around, followed. A small, skinny little girl was huddled over some broken glass on the ground. Her hair was matted, her skin was filthy. Dean approached her. "Little girl—are you okay?"

Alex looked at the little girl, then her eyes went up, to the graffiti at the end of the alleyway. She froze, her heart seeming to stop. Spray painted in blood-red letters—_CROATOAN_.

Alex looked back at the little girl, at Dean leaning down to touch her shoulder—and made a horrible realization. "Dean, no!" she warned in a shout, shoving him aside even as the girl looked up and lunged forward, a piece of jagged glass in her hand. Dean and Alex jumped backward in tandem, barely missing being cut. The slash had been so violent that the kid almost pitched herself off her feet—and taking the only chance he might get, Dean kicked the kid in the face. She fell over, going still. Dean was breathing heavy, mostly from surprise and adrenaline. They glanced at each other. "That was just wrong," he commented grimly. No time for sympathy, Alex nodded her head toward the graffiti, and he saw it, muttered, "aw _crap_."

And then, a bunch of disheveled, agitated adults, maybe twenty of them, rounded the corner—Alex's blood chilled—_Croatoans_. Dean grabbed onto Alex, already backing up. "This is the part where we run!" he said, and run they did, ran for their very lives, not even sure where they were going. They rounded corner after corner, trying to lose the rapidly gaining Croatoans in the destroyed city streets. And suddenly, they rounded another corner, and ran into a high, chain link fence. Dean and Alex whirled, realizing they were cornered, weaponless, probably as good as dead.

And then without any warning, the sound of semi-automatic gunfire rang out, and several of the Croatoans in front of them jerked, dropped, as bullets pelted the crowd. Dean and Alex grabbed at each other and fell to the ground for cover, half-crawling half-scrambling toward a nearby alley way. Dean pushed Alex ahead of himself. "_Shit_!" Dean swore, panting as they narrowly dodged several bullets and found cover in the narrow alleyway.

Alex was shaking and panting, pressed up against the wall beside her brother. "What the hell?!" she asked over the sound of continuing gunfire as she gulped air down. "Kansas City got infected and destroyed overnight by the croatoan virus?!"

"Not possible," Dean said, shaking his head in a sort of stunned way. The sound of gunfire died out.

Dean craned his neck, peering in the direction from where they had just come. Alex recognized the look on his face—he was trying to figure out what to do.

After a couple seconds, he looked back at her. "We'll wait until dark and hop the fence. Stay sharp. You got your knife?"

She gave him a look—_duh_. "Always."

* * *

"I don't get it," Dean said, holding his phone up in the air. "No service. The hell is going on?"

Alex fiddled with the car's radio, but there was only static on every channel. They were driving down an entirely still highway in the dark of night. Every now and then they passed wrecks or fires, but they saw no one. It was eerie and disconcerting. After they had found a way out of the city, they had seen a sign posted on the outside of the fence that said the city was a "Croatoan Hot Zone." The sign had been dated August, 2014. So, there was_ that_. Alex glanced at Dean, whose expression was rigid as he drove.

"You really think Bobby will he able to help us?" Alex asked. "Well who the hell _else_ could?" Dean retorted.

"He might not even live in the same place in 2014," Alex pointed out. She hoped she was wrong. "Or he could be _dead_," Dean said bluntly. Alex looked at him in surprise.

"'_Croatoan pandemic reaches Australia_.'" The Winchesters both jumped at the sound of a new voice behind them, turning to see Zachariah sitting in the back seat, reading a newspaper leisurely. And suddenly, this entire thing made perfect sense. "I thought I smelled your stink on this _Back to the Future_ crap," Dean growled.

"'_President Palin defends bombing of Houston,_'" Zachariah continued casually reading from the paper, then looked up, smiled at Alex. "Certainly a buyer's market in real estate. Let's see what's happening in sports. Oh… that's right—no more sports. Congress revoked the right to group assembly. What's left of Congress, that is. Hardly a quorum, if you ask me."

Dean's knuckles were white on the steering wheel. "You are not funny, man, so stop trying."

"How did you find us?" Alex demanded.

Zachariah smiled, speaking in a pleasant conversational tone. "Afraid we had to tap some _unorthodox_ resources of late—human informants. We've been making inspirational visits to the fringier Christian groups. They've been given your image, told to keep an eye out."

"The Bible guy outside the motel—" Dean surmised. "He, what, dropped a dime on us?"

"Onward, Christian soldiers."

"Just send us back, you jackass," Alex said acidly.

"Oh, you'll get back—all in good time," Zachariah said with a friendly smile. "We just want you two to_ marinate _a bit." His friendly persona seemed to fade a little, and he leaned forward, looked at Dean, talked with a soft, dangerous tone. "Three days, Dean. Three days to see where this course of action takes you..." he then looked at Alex meaningfully. "And your family."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Alex asked, not sure what the angel was getting at, but disliking his tone.

"It means that your brother's choices have consequences," Zachariah said. "This is what happens to the world and your little family pack if Dean continues to say 'no' to Michael. Have a little look-see." And then he disappeared, leaving two very frustrated Winchesters.

"Son of a bitch," Dean muttered. "Three days. Fine. Great. Friggin' great. I _already_ don't like this."

"I sure as hell hope Bobby can give us some damn answers," Alex breathed.

But trying to contact Bobby would prove to be a dead end. They found his house in a state of abandonment, his wheelchair rusted and bent and turned over in his living room. Bobby was nowhere to be found.

They did find one lead—a black and white photograph of some gun-toting guys they didn't recognize. Bobby was in the front of them, sitting in his wheelchair, holding a gun too. Beside him, there was a guy who looked kind of like Cas. They were all standing in front of a sign that read Camp Chitaqua.

After doing some fast old fashioned research with some local maps and directories, Dean and Alex located the camp. It was only a couple hours from Bobby's, and they raced there in breakneck speed. Dean was convinced they would find Bobby there. Alex wasn't so sure.

The camp was surrounded by chain link fence, and had armed patrols—Alex argued in whispers with Dean, said they should wait for daybreak instead of just sneaking in and risk being shot in the middle of the night—and he almost listened to her. Almost. But then he saw the Impala, sitting off in some overgrown weeds, broken down and rusted out. He had muttered, "Oh, baby, no…" and climbed the fence. Alex had followed him, pissed but unwilling to be separated. She did hang back by the fence when he crept over to the car. It was out in the open, and she had a bad feeling about it. "Dean—" she protested in a hissed whisper. "Oh my God…" Dean said, touching his car frantically, not paying attention to his sister. "Baby, what'd they _do_ to you?"

Alex saw the shadowy figure too late—wasn't able to warn Dean before he was hit over the head. Alex ran out of where she had been hiding, ready to deck this guy who had just knocked out her brother. "Hey!"

The man whirled, and when their eyes met, both of them froze momentarily. "What—" Alex managed, staring into the assailant's face, her mouth hanging open. In that brief pause, his face changed from shock to aggression, and there was suddenly a fist flying towards her face, and the whole work went dark.

* * *

"Look, man—I'm no shapeshifter or demon or anything, okay?" she heard Dean say. Alex groaned, grimaced, and opened her eyes, blinking against double vision. She was awkwardly sitting on some dark wood flooring, and her wrist seemed to be tethered to something. "Yeah, I know," Dean's voice replied, as if he were talking to himself.

Alex looked up, confused momentarily, and saw that she was handcuffed to a metal ladder, and Dean was beside her... and Dean was also _in front_ of her. She suddenly remembered everything—Dean getting knocked out, her rushing in, then seeing_ Dean_ was the one who had knocked Dean out. She was so, very confused. She looked back and forth at the two of them, stumped. "There's two of you. Why are there two of you?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out… '_Alex,'_" said the Dean who was holding them hostage. He said her name as if he didn't believe that was her. He looked back at her Dean. "I did the drill while you were out. Silver, salt, holy water—nothing, both of you. But you know what was funny, '_Dean_'? Was that you had every hidden lock pick, box cutter, and switchblade that I carry. Now, you want to explain that? Oh, and the, uh, resemblance, while you're at it?"

"Zachariah." Dean said simply. "Come again?" the other one asked.

Dean fixed the other Dean with a contemptuous look. "Zach plucked us from our beds in 2009 and threw us five years into the future."

This apparent future version of Dean's eyes narrowed. "Where is he? I want to talk to him."

"We don't know," Alex told him, catty. "Oh, you don't know," he retorted, matching her tone. She just looked at him. "No, we don't. He's not exactly on our _speed dial_."

Her Dean was watching the exchange with an odd expression, like maybe he was realizing what it looked like to see himself argue with his sister. He then cut in, drawing the future version of himself's attention. "Look, I just want to get us back to our own friggin' year, okay?"

Future Dean stood up from where he had been leaning against a table. "Okay. If you're me, then tell me something only I would know."

Beside her, Dean looked in deep thought, glanced at her, sighed, then looked at the other version of himself. "Rhonda Hurley. We were, uh, nineteen." He glanced sidelong at Alex, cleared his throat. "She, uh, made us try on her panties. They were pink. And satiny." Alex was now looking at him with an open mouth. Dean awkwardly rubbed his neck, avoiding her gaze. "And, uh, we kind of liked it." The other Dean looked impressed. "Touché."

Alex, however, was trying not to dissolve into laughter. "Wow. That is_ so awkward_."

Dean finally turned to her, looking very serious. "I swear you to secrecy, right here and now," he said, and held out his pinky finger. Grudgingly, Alex looped hers through. The 2014 just watched, a strange expression on his face. Something like sadness. He wiped it away. "So, what, Zach zapped you two up here to see how bad it gets?"

"I guess," Dean said. "Croatoan virus, right? That's their endgame?"

The other Dean nodded. He looked really tired. "It's efficient, it's incurable, and it's scary as hell. Turns people into monsters. Started hitting the major cities about two years ago. World really went in the crapper after that."

This was a lot of heavy information. Alex's Dean took a pause, then looked up again, suddenly thinking of something. "What about Sam?"

2014 Dean went still, got a little quiet. "Heavyweight showdown in Detroit. From what I understand, Sam didn't make it."

Alex literally felt her heart drop. _No. _How? "We weren't with him?" She asked in soft disbelief.

"No." 2014 Dean looked down, withering slightly under his sister's wounded, questioning gaze. "No, me and Sam, we haven't talked in—hell, five years."

"What, we never tried to find him?" Dean asked, shellshocked.

There was a jaded, if guilty, scoff. "We had other people to worry about."

"Like _who_?" Alex asked, a little angrily—because, why would any version of Dean let the family fall apart like that? She suddenly realized she didn't know where future_ her _was. "What about me?" She asked. "Where the hell am I in all this mess?"

Dean nodded, looked down, like he'd just been waiting to be asked that. "You aren't here."

"Okay... so where am I?" Alex asked, getting fed up. He stood up, took a couple steps toward the door, looked back at them with a strange expression, and his jaw clenched, unclenched. "Alex Winchester is dead and gone."

"_What_?" She asked, to which Dean just scoffed. "Yeah. Dark times, what can I say?" He turned to leave. Beside Alex, her Dean was positively speechless and horrified.

"What do you mean, _what can you say_?" Alex repeated, not really sure she believed what he'd told them. "I'm_ dead_? You're joking, right?"

"No, I'm not _joking_." He looked slightly sickened. "You died eight months ago, okay?"

Alex felt stung. "How?"

He let out a soft air-laugh, a sound that had no happiness in it at all. He looked bitter. "I don't think its best for you to know that _little detail_." He turned to leave, and the other Dean strained against his handcuffs in disbelief.

"Where you going? You're just gonna tell us that crap and leave us here?"

2014 Dean turned and looked at them, irritated. "Yes. I got a camp full of twitchy trauma survivors out there with an apocalypse hanging over their head. The last thing they need to see is a version of _The Parent Trap, _and Alex back from the friggin' grave. So, yeah, you stay locked down." He left, slamming the door behind him.

"_Dick!" _Dean exclaimed, earning a funny look from his sister. They were silent and still for a few seconds, trying to process all of it. "Okay." Alex looked at her brother. "So, have we decided if this real or not?"

Grudging, Dean looked her direction. "For all our sakes… I hope not. But I don't wanna wait around to find out." He looked down and began digging at a nail in the floor with his fingernails. Alex waited a couple seconds, then cleared her throat. "What are you doing?"

He shot her a look. "How else are we gonna pick these handcuff locks, genius? I'm not sitting here cuffed all day until I come back."

Alex just smiled and calmly pulled the lock pick out from underneath her shirt, where it hung on its silver chain. She dangled it in midair and then pointed at it. Dean stopped his floorboard digging and looked at her in a mixture of confusion and pleasant surprise. "When did you start wearing _that_?"

"You are too observant for your own good," she said sarcastically, fiddling with her handcuffs and the lock pick. "Remember that time I got locked in the panic room? I didn't like that very much, so…" she trailed off. Her cuffs snapped off, and she began working on his. "Good thing I never mentioned it to you, or you—the 2014 you—might have known about it and taken it." She thought a second, frowned. "Wait. But if this is real… the real future… then why doesn't 2014 you remember this? Wouldn't the you here in front of me be the same one later? So, the guy who just left, would be you, but later—and would remember doing this. Right?"

Dean gave her the weirdest, most confused face ever. "_Huh!?_"

"Never mind," she said, feeling a little confused herself. "It made sense in my mind." His cuffs fell off with one last turn of the lock pick. Now both free, the siblings stood up. And then Dean turned on Alex, his face stern. "Okay, I'm gonna go find Cas. You stay here."

"Stay here?" Alex asked in protest, unable to believe he would ask that of her, especially in this crazy place. Dean gave her a deadly serious look. "Yes. You heard him—uh, me. You're not alive anymore in this version of the future. These people see you, recognize you, they will shoot you on sight. Think you're a Croatoan or a zombie, I dunno. So, yeah. Stay here."

Not at all happy about it, Alex complied, sitting down in one of the kitchen table chairs sullenly as Dean left the cabin. She folded her arms, pissed. Too much of her life had been spent sitting and waiting around. All of five minutes passed before she stood, shaking her head, and left out the back door, stealing through the thick brush and skirting around the back of the cabins. Dean was always leaving her behind and making her stay behin—_ouch!_—she walked right into a bunch of briers and hear a huge ripping sound, looked down, and swore softly—her shirt, Dean's old Metallica shirt—now had an impressive tear right up the center. She pulled the brambles away with just the tips of her fingers, wincing against the sharp pricks. She needed to pay closer attention to her surroundings. She could see Dean going up into a cabin near the edge of the camp. She didn't see anyone else around, and stole closer, then ducked down and froze as a handful of women came out of the cabin, talking and laughing. She waited until they had all walked away to steal a little closer.

She crept around the side of the cabin, and could hear two voices inside, indistinct, but both male. One was definitely Dean. She waited there at the corner of the cabin, peeked around, looking to see if the coast were clear. One woman was still visible, but heading up into another cabin. Alex could hear her brother's voice—"Dude, what _happened_ to you?"—"Life," was the strangely nonchalant reply in a voice that was very familiar—Cas? There was an odd laugh. "I recognize that look Dean. I'm past help, but thanks for your concern." That definitely sounded like Cas, but something was off. She glanced around—the coast was clear. She dashed up the stairs and through the beaded doorway. It was dim inside, but she recognized Cas immediately, even if he didn't look like himself at all.

There was a strange, goofy smile on Cas's face—he was sitting on a chest and looking at Dean—but when he glanced at her, the smile fell, was replaced with incredible shock. He shot up to his feet, his mouth open, his eyes wide, expression almost horrified. He looked like he had seen a ghost—which, she supposed, he kind of had, if she were really dead in this future.

"Hi, Cas," she greeted, kind of cautiously. "You look…" She trailed off, taking him in, not sure how to react. "_Different_." Truthfully, he was barely recognizable. He had a scuffy short beard, shaggy, uneven hair, dark circles under his eyes. He was wearing a loose tunic, some kind of stretchy pants, and of all things, _beaded sandals_. He even _stood _differently, and his expression was so unlike anything she'd ever seen on his face before. It was kind of eerie, in all honesty.

He didn't appear to have heard a word of what she had just said. He was just staring, swallowing, looking horrified. The blood had drained out of his face and he seemed to be at a complete loss for words. His expression wobbled, he looked down, and when he spoke, it was almost like he was talking to himself. "Yes, of course. You're… you're here. Why didn't I realize?" His eyes were doing weird things as he looked at the floor. Widening, then squinting. "_Dean_ from 2009, _Alex_ from 2009…" His voice was weird, he moved strangely. "Makes sense," he mumbled, a hand on his head now. "Makes sense."

Alex frowned, looked at Dean. "Is he _stoned_?"

"Among other things," Dean said, and gave her an unhappy look. "You weren't supposed to come out of there until I came and got you." Alex shrugged innocently. "I couldn't wait any longer. Sorry." He gave her a scowl and she rolled her eyes. "_Relax_. No one saw me."

Dean just sighed in aggravation. "Fine. Well look, halo over there can't take us back to our year, says he's got no angel power left." Cas looked up from the floor at them, his face blank. "So basically," Dean continued, "We're stuck. With this weirdass version of Cas."

The sound of the beaded doorway opening cut the conversation short, and the three of them turned to look. A tan woman with blonde hair peeked in, smiled at Cas. There was an oddly suggestive kind of quality to the smile. "Cas, we're ready for you in my cabin."

He glanced her way clearly irritated, not really even looking at her. "Not _now_, Lily," he said impatiently, waving a hand. She looked immensely confused. "But—" Cas seemed to fly off the handle. "I said not _now_!" he practically shouted, trembling. "Get _out_!"

Dean and Alex glanced at each other—more than a little surprised by the outburst. The girl left, looking kind of offended. Cas began to pace the floor. "What, changed your mind about the orgy?" Dean asked sarcastically, and Cas just shot him a look. Alex looked at Dean oddly, as if she were sure she'd misheard—_orgy_? Last time she'd seen Cas, he was a stuttering, fumbling, frightened virgin.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Whatever, there a bathroom here?" Dean asked. "In there." Cas replied distractedly, gesturing vaguely. Dean left the two of them alone, and Alex just looked at Cas, not understanding. He wouldn't look at her, only ran a hand through his hair, made a weird grimacing face. "What's happened to you?" Alex asked softly, looking around the cabin. "Incense… candles…" she sniffed the air. Yup, that was definitely pot that she smelled. "Weed?"

"Just… ways to pass the time," he said, and looked down. He was frowning, but not like he did in 2009. In that time, he frowned because he didn't understand. Now, it looked like he were upset about something, really bothered by something. Alex was entirely caught off guard by this—she hadn't expected this at all when Dean had said he'd find Cas. She had pictured the same Cas she remembered—trench coat, stoic, calm, awkward in his grasp of how to interact with people, how to do everyday things. But this guy in front of her—was shocking. Saddening. Confusing. She cleared her throat, stepped a little closer. Maybe he could clear up a couple questions for her, and then she could leave him to get high in peace. "Hey, uh, Cas, is it true?" She asked gently, trying to be sensitive. "That, you know, I died?"

That question stilled him. He suddenly looked so very tense, and didn't look her in the eye. "Yes."

"How?" she asked intently, taking another step toward him. He eyes flickered up to hers, and he didn't answer for a few seconds. "A mistake," he said, sounding exhausted. "It was a mistake."

She looked at him closely, not understanding—then noticed a silver chain hanging around his neck, whatever was on the end caught the light, and she could see a flash of silver shapes there in the V of the unbuttoned tunic. _Wait a minute_—! She reached out and grabbed the necklace, consequently pulling him a little closer as she examined the two shining objects on the end of the necklace with total confusion—her old silver whistle, the one she'd had worn as a kid and teen—and her dad's wedding band, the one she wore all the time? Stunned beyond words, she looked at Cas, then back to the items, then at him again. "_Why do you have these_?" she demanded, feeling stranger by the second.

Cas was just staring at her, then he pulled the chain back gently, tucked it back into his shirt, backed up a little bit. "You gave them to me."

Alex tilted her head to the side, her eyebrows knit together. "I gave them to you," she repeated in disbelief. "And why the hell would I do that?"

Cas seemed unwilling to tell her, just looked away, shook his head. "Just… good luck charms. It's not important."

Alex gave him an exasperated look. "Still allergic to straight answers, huh? Fine; listen, have you got anything I can wear? This shirt got ripped on my way in." She pointed to the giant tear on her shirt, and he seemed to notice it for the first time. With a great deal of reluctance, he nodded toward the dresser. "Bottom drawer."

He was acting so strange. She opened up the drawer and froze. She recognized most of the clothing there—her green and gray flannel button up, her Guns N' Roses tank top, her light green t-shirt with the smudge of vamp blood on the hemline that she'd never been able to get out. _What the hell? _She was beginning to feel afraid, almost. She turned and looked at him for an explanation. "What are you doing with these…?" she asked shakily.

He shrugged, scratching the side of his head, distracted, almost giving the impression that he were feeling physically ill. "You and I were, uh, roommates."

"_Roommates_." Alex turned very slowly, looked at the one bed… then back at Cas questioningly. "Yes, roommates," he repeated blankly, and began to walk out. "I need some air."

"What, I slept on the floor?" Alex called after him, but he had already left. She was left to look around, puzzled, wondering if this were a huge joke. Roommates with Cas. That sounded like a terrible sitcom or something. Dean came out of the bathroom at that moment, and Alex pointed a finger at him. "This future is beyond bizarre."

"You're just _now_ figuring that out?" he asked sarcastically.

* * *

Alex changed into one of the tank tops in the drawer, one she didn't recognize—it was too weird to wear one she already owned—and about five minutes later, they could hear the sound of cars rolling in on the gravel. "Oh look, I'm back. That didn't take long," Dean said, and went outside. Alex stayed on the porch of the cabin, watching from a distance, and Cas stood a few feet off from the porch as Dean ambled toward the new arrivals. They were all were opening beers and drinking at the Jeep they had driven in. And then without any warning, 2014 Dean drew his gun and pointed it at one of the men's backs. "Hey. Hey! Watch out!" 2009 Dean shouted, even as a single shot rang out. The other two guys looked up, and saw the two Deans standing ten feet apart.

"_Dammit,_" 2014 Dean said, and then glared at his confused soldiers, taking a couple seconds, obviously trying to think of a way to remedy the weird situation. "I'm not gonna lie to you! Me and him—it's a pretty messed-up situation we got going. But believe me, when you need to know something, you will know it. Until then, we all have work to do." He pointed an angry finger at Dean and said, "My cabin, _now_."

Alex came down from the porch, rushing to Cas's side, watching future Dean roughly manhandle her Dean into the cabin.

"What's he doing with him?" Alex demanded. "Bitching him out, probably," Cas said idly, and Alex looked at him oddly. One of the soldiers stepped closer to them, looking at Alex with narrowed eyes, with recognition. "Wait—_she died_. I remember her. She was here when I first got here… then died. How can you still be alive?" His hand was crossing his body to the pistol on his hip.

Even as Alex was recoiling, her reflexes kicking in, someone flashed past her. Cas had lunged forward, socking the guy in the jaw with everything he had, a certain wild and sloppy energy to it, unlike the other times she'd seen him kick ass—but the guy went down onto his back from the force of the impact, and Cas stood over him, grabbing him by his jacket viciously. "Don't _touch her_, Adam, not you, not anyone! She's fine. Not a Croat, not _anything_! And keep your mouth shut about this, or you'll have to deal with me." He shoved the guy back, and took a couple backward steps toward Alex, keeping his body between her and the guys. "What, the camp drunk?" Adam retorted, wiping blood from his lip and getting up slowly. "That's real scary."

Cas's voice lowered, and he sounded something like she remembered. "Don't make me tell you twice."

Adam seemed to think about it, then rolled his eyes, acting unaffected. "Whatever, man." Adam looked at Alex suspiciously, but they left. Cas turned to her, his expression more familiar to her—grim, dangerous. "Go back inside my cabin."

"But—"

"Just _go_!" He snapped, and blinking a couple times in surprise, Alex shut her mouth, frowned, and muttered, "Fine."

Alex stalked back inside and crossed her arms, watched Cas through the window. He was standing in front of the cabin, running a hand through his hair. He almost looked like he was going to be sick. He slowly came to the porch and sat on the steps, putting his shaggy head in his hands. Alex's anger died down in a sudden wash of empathy, of sadness. She wondered how that could be Castiel. He_ looked_ like Cas, but _what had happened_? Was this really his future? It made no sense—_none_. He was nothing like he used to be.

Alex looked around the cabin, giving it a better once-over. Candles, a Buddha statue, an Indian looking rug. The single, big bed. There was a dresser, a chest, a couple chairs and a small table. She glanced back outside, where Cas remained unmoving, and she turned back around, eyed the wooden chest curiously. She went to it and cracked it open—then went still. His trench coat was neatly folded up there, and the sight of that triggered some kind of deep sadness in her. She touched it gently, with just the tips of her fingers, and she remembered him in it, just a couple days ago, as they traveled across the country in the Impala.

She shut the chest softly, slowly, momentarily too disconsolate to really do anything but stare, puzzled. Shaking herself, she went to the closet, opened it curiously, then eyebrows went up as she saw what the shelves were lined with—hard liquor, and lots of it. She picked one bottle up, recognizing the green liquid as absinthe. _Damn, Cas_. To the left of the shelves were some of his clothes on hangars, and behind that, she recognized the sleeve of one of her oldest, most worn out cargo jackets. Seeing their clothes hanging together was odd. A morbid reminder that she had been here, but now was gone. Below the clothes, there were some boxes piled in disarray, and she frowned, peering at the one on top.

The contents of the box were jumbled—a bunch of pill bottles. She raked through them, realizing what they were. Ecstasy, speed, cocaine. Some of them looked like they had been half used up, most were nearly empty. She held one in her hand, suddenly so very sad, not sure what to think of this discovery. Oh, _Cas_. What _happened to you? _And more than that…_ why? _

She went to the window where she could see him. He hadn't moved. Shoulders slumped forward, shaggy head of dark hair in his hands. Who _was_ that guy, and what had happened to the Cas she knew? Moreover, what happened to the Dean she knew? He'd just shot a guy in the back, told her she died without so much as blinking, said he hadn't talked to Sam in five years—this really_ couldn't _be the future. It just couldn't.

After maybe ten minutes, Cas came back in, avoiding looking at her. She, however, was watching him closely. She had a theory, and had to know if it were right. "You're not an angel anymore, are you?"

He let out a soft, grudging sigh. "What gave me away?" Alex just spread her hands out, looked at him silently, as if to say 'what_ didn't _give you away?'

"Yeah. So, 2009. What part?" He seemed a little more lucid than he had at first.

"Early Spring. We just hunted down Raphael and got jack squat from him."

"Yeah," Cas said, thinking. "That time you got cupcake icing on Dean's seat."

Alex tilted her head to the side just slightly, perplexed. "That seems kind of like a really random thing to remember."

"I remember everything," he said heavily, and brushed past her, went over towards his closet, pulling off his tunic over his head as he went. Alex stared at his bare back, and as he turned around, his bare chest, shocked. He had _scars_. On his arms he had a few white lines like scratches, a few more of those across his stomach, a blotchy raised pink spot on one of his biceps—a bullet wound? Smaller, dark long shapes—a few on his shoulders, a couple across his ribcage. Those looked like a knife had left them. It almost looked like he had seen as many fights, if not more, than she had. She looked around the cabin again, remembering that she had apparently lived here with him—she that got her wondering what she had been like. Had she changed, too, like Dean and Cas had?

Cas got another shirt out of his closet, shrugged it on, buttoned it up. The things of hers he wore around his neck glinted in the light as his fingers went up, button after button.

"Cas, what was I like?" He looked up at her at that point, forehead wrinkled. "I mean, did I change? Dean isn't himself, you're not… the you I remember."

He seemed to know exactly what she was getting at, and shook his head sardonically. "I wasn't always like this," he said, and to her, it sounded like he was ashamed. He didn't answer her question—typical. He just nodded his head toward the door. "Come on, I need to take you to Dean's cabin."

"Why?"

"You just can't stay here," he said darkly, stone-faced, and was already heading out the door, throwing a "follow me" over his shoulder.

* * *

It was just after sunset, and both of the Deans, Alex, Cas, and a woman named Risa were gathered in Dean's cabin. What was the occasion? Well, it had become abundantly clear to Alex, for one, why Zachariah had sent them here, to this specific date. 2014 Dean had finally tracked down the Colt—the same one Cas had mentioned to them in 2009—and with it, he planned to kill the Devil. Not next week, not next month, but tonight.

"Lucifer is _here_," Dean said, jabbing his finger into a circled portion of the map that he had spread out on the table they had gathered around. "Now. I know the block and I know the building—"

"Oh, good—" Cas wisecracked, cutting Dean off. "It's right in the middle of a _hot zone_." He sat casually, his feet propped up on the table.

Dean gave him a cursory, challenging glance. "Crawling with Croats, yeah. You saying my plan is reckless?"

"Are _you_ saying we, uh, walk in straight up the driveway, past all the demons and the Croats, and we shoot the devil?" Cas replied, his sarcastic tone and matching facial expressions causing Alex to stare. Dean just narrowed his eyes at Cas. "Yes."

Cas leaned further back in his chair, giving Dean an unamused look. "In that case, reckless sounds about right."

"Yeah, well, no one is forcing you to come, Cas," Dean growled, to which Cas sighed, relented. "I'm going. Of course I'm going." He looked at the 2009 Dean. "But why is he? I mean, he's you five years ago. If something happens to him, you're gone, right?"

"He's _coming_," Dean said authoritatively. "Alex too… we could use the extra gun. She's a damn good shot."

At that, Cas's feet came off the table, his expression changed. "What? It's too dangerous to take_ her_ there, let alone Dean!"

2014 Dean tilted his head to the side at the outburst, frowning, looking at Cas with a suddenly intent gaze. "Cas… are you _sober_?"

Cas looked caught, as if that were an accusation he resented.

Dean looked genuinely surprised. "Last time you were straight was…" 2014 Dean looked at Alex and his tongue nervously darted out, his eyebrows shrugged upwards. "Awhile ago." Cas ignored the comment, getting physically agitated, leaning over the table. "They _shouldn't go_, Dean, and you know it."

"Hey, we're right here, you know," 2009 Dean said. "And we wanna go. So, end of discussion."

Cas turned on him, angry, using his hands as he talked. "Aren't you listening to me? It's much, much too dangerous for either of you!" He looked between both Deans, as if looking for back up. When he got nothing, he seemed to grow resolute, hostile. "Dean, I will_ not_ let her go," he said, as if that were final.

"You won't _let _me go?" Alex said incredulously, incredibly defensive, standing up. "You're still into the overprotective angel guardian stuff? I can take care of _myself._"

Cas looked at her, deeply affected, regretful. He looked away, his jaw tight. "You don't _understand_."

"So make me," Alex prompted, to which Cas said nothing, only clenched his jaw tensely.

2014 Dean shook his head and stood up, map in hand. "We're loaded and on the road by midnight. One of you take Alex and get her a weapon, one of you start getting the grunts moving." Dean looked at the other Dean. "I need some time alone with... myself."

"I'll get everyone rallied," Risa said, already brushing past Dean and out of the cabin.

"I guess that means you're with me," Cas said to Alex, sounding positively thrilled about it. Wordlessly, he led her out of Dean's cabin and to one of the rusted tin sheds that offset the camp's mess hall.

After he had basically kicked her out of his cabin that morning, she hadn't seen him again all day, and he was acting just as odd as before. He was dressed differently, though. Not like a damn hippie. He had on faded jeans, military style boots, a button up, a cargo jacket. But his face, his eyes, were still hollow and avoided looking at hers.

The storage shed he took her into was about ten feet long and ten feet wide, the walls were lined with gun racks and those racks were filled with semi-automatic weapons. Cas went to the back of the shed and pulled one off the rack, brought it back to her. "Here ya go," he said apathetically, holding it out to her. "AR-15 rifle. Your favorite."

Alex looked at him a little uncertainly, not taking the gun. She had never used one of those before in her entire life—shotguns and pistols, yes, but machine guns, assault rifles? "I've never used one of these."

He thought a minute, then seemed to realize something. His tone remained businesslike, forced. "Well, you will. And, I assure you, it will become your favorite." He held out the gun to her, and her hands brushed over his as she took it. His expression went cold. Alex froze, thinking she had done something. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

He shook his head, suddenly kind of laughing and smiling, as if what she said was funny, but there was no light in his eyes. He threw a hand up briefly. "Look around us! Everything is wrong." The smile was fading. "I… drink and drug myself out of my mind to forget." He grew quieter. "I bury myself in every distraction imaginable." He looked down. "Anything to forget the pain."

Alex looked at him, not sure what to say or how to react. He really must have been through a lot in this shitty version of the future—his physical scars that she'd glimpsed bore testament to that, but the drugs, the alcohol, the _everything_ that he was that she never would have pictured him to be… she looked away from him. It was hard to see him like this. She didn't _want_ to see him this way. It was too much.

She turned her attention to inspecting the gun, tested the feel of it in her hands, trying to sidestep his confession of pain. "This has a good weight to it." She looked down the sights. "Not bad. I can see why I like it."

Cas said nothing. He didn't seem to have heard her, or care about replying. Alex set the gun aside for a second, looked at Cas. She had to try again—just had to. "How did I die, Cas? Please, _tell me_. It's important." She gently grasped his arms, trying to appeal to him. He looked at her like she revolted him, and he stepped back, refusing to look at her, looking at the guns beside him instead. "It's—it's best if you don't know."

"Why?" She demanded, not letting up. "I mean, it's_ my_ future, right? I deserve to know. That's the whole point of Zach sending me and Dean here."

He shook his head, let out a deep breath. He looked at her long and hard, reluctant, cornered. "I was with you when you died, okay? Happy?" His face began to tremble with—what was that—anger? Grief? "And I could have prevented it if I hadn't been so damn foolhardy—so _stupid_—" he was almost seething now, getting more and more visibly upset. "I couldn't save you. I let you _die_."

"Hey, whoa. Just relax," she said, holding her hands out a little. She felt like if he didn't calm down a little bit, he might get violent—it was that intense. She said the first thing that popped into her mind, which was probably the wrong choice. "I mean, you can't save everyone, right?"

The violent anger flew away, and in its place, there was this confused sadness. "I didn't want to save everyone. I wanted to save _you_."

The silence hung between them for a long pause—Alex speechless because of the way he'd said it. Something about the look in his eyes when he said it, the soft broken note on his voice. Cas looked like he were getting up the courage to tell her something, wetting his chapped lips and shutting his eyes for a second. "You and I…" he trailed off and his eyes went down, his brows knit together. "We…"

He went quiet, seeming to change his mind. Alex clenched her jaw, waited, and still he said nothing. "We _what_," she asked flatly, tired of the runaround, not sure why he couldn't give her a straight answer. He looked at her, his expression so strange. And then… she went slack-jawed, a very obvious possibility she hadn't even considered abruptly smacking her in the face._ Oh my God—_ "Wait… no... _you and I_… as in… _together_?"

He looked at her from the corner of his eye slowly. "You might say that."

"You're _kidding_," she said, but he just looked at her. Then softer, "You're _not_ kidding."

He shrugged, avoiding her gaze now. "A lot can happen in five years."

Alex was shaking her head kind of hollowly, her mind wrapping itself around what he was telling her. Everything now made sense, and she was really amazed at how dense, how clueless she'd been. "That's why you have the ring and the whistle. And my clothes. And…" she trailed off, her voice losing all its power as her eyes flicked onto his, "and that _look _on your face."

She struggled a minute, trying to process all of it. She didn't understand, and felt like she was being tricked, or had misunderstood everything. So, she fell back on the only thing she knew to do—be sarcastic and evasive. "Aren't you, I dunno, like several thousand years too old for me?"

He chuckled, a surprisingly fond smile coming over his face, softening his features. "That's not the first time you've asked me that." Alex went blank again. It was a totally disconcerting thing to hear from his mouth. Cas swallowed, looking genuinely apologetic. "I'm sorry. I've made you uncomfortable."

"Uncomfortable is an understatement," she shot back. "This is _freaky_, Cas!"

His mouth turned up in a crooked little smile, and he spoke without thinking. "So blunt and to the point. I always lo—" he caught himself, his expression going rigid, "enjoyed that about you."

Alex didn't miss what he was about to say, and blinked a couple times. She just couldn't believe this. It seemed too strange and unlikely for her to grasp. Her and Cas? I mean, sure, maybe she had fantasized him a couple times (not meaning to, but it had just _happened_, dammit), and she had definitely admitted to herself that she found him incredibly attractive, but their chances at ever being together… she hadn't even given those any real thought, because she had been pretty sure those chances didn't even exist, and what would anyone, an angel most of all, see in _her_?

"I just don't get it, Cas," Alex said softly, hugging herself now, feeling lost. "I can't… I don't know if I believe you. It's too weird, you know?"

Her words seemed to sadden him, and maybe on an impulse, he touched her arm with his hand, resting it there just above her elbow, bare skin to bare skin, his thumb tracing down slowly. He sought her gaze, his brow wrinkled. She stared up at him, feeling incredibly short of breath all the sudden. The way he touched her was just_ so unlike_ what she had expected, and there was an intimate familiarity to it that stunned her. She stared at him and he stared back, expression intense and unreadable, his eyes flicking from her eyes to her mouth, then back. She pulled back from him, flustered.

Cas looked almost rejected by the way she had pulled away, and then seemed to shake himself, pull himself together. He thrust a box of bullets at her. "Here. Should be enough ammo."

He brushed past her, making a quick exit out of the shed, leaving Alex by herself and so very confused by what had just happened.

* * *

It was midnight, and there was a full, bright silver moon directly overhead in the sky. Alex headed toward where all the vehicles were starting up, her weapon slung over her back, her jacket hung over her arm. She paused when something caught her eye she hadn't noticed before. Over past where the cabins ended and the woods began, in an overgrown patch of land, there were maybe twenty wooden crosses sticking up out of the ground. In something like morbid curiosity, she wandered over. Some of them were fresh. One of the graves, grass already grown over it, was crudely engraved with the initials A.E.W. She went still—Alexandra Elizabeth Winchester? Was this…? Someone was coming up behind her. She turned to see Chuck, who she had seen earlier that day while she and Dean were waiting around. He gave her a tight smile, hands shoved in his pockets. "Hey, Alex."

She looked back at the grave with her initials on it, ignoring his greeting. "Chuck, is this—?" she looked at him for confirmation.

"Yeah," he confirmed, kind of grimly. "That's your grave."

She could think of nothing to say, only tilted her head to the side, looking at the little bunch of yellow and white wildflowers there at the base of the cross. She wondered if Dean did that. "Someone put flowers on it."

"Yup," Chuck said. "Cas does." This statement drew a stunned looked from Alex. Chuck was oblivious, looking at the cross as he continued. "He always does. It's the _only_ thing he does consistently around here. Well, besides drink and cause problems."

Someone hollered Chuck's name, and the prophet threw a "gotta go" at Alex as he hurried off. Alex watched him leave, speechless, then looked over where Cas was loading up some weapons into an SUV with Risa. He looked blank and stony.

Alex looked back at the flowers. They were fresh like they'd been put out recently, so carefully arranged, tied with a tiny little strand of twine in a very uneven bunched up shape, like he'd try to tie a bow and not been able to quite pull it off. She smiled a little. _That_ was more like the Cas she remembered—kind of clueless on how to do everyday things. Somehow, even though it seemed a little macabre, she thought how nice it was to know, even though she was dead in this future, someone still looked after her and still remembered her—and that someone just happened to be her guardian angel. She wasn't sure if that were ironic or kind of beautiful.

* * *

Cas shut the tailgate of his SUV and rounded the corner of the vehicle, only to be confronted by present-day Dean, who was glaring at him. "Okay, you wanna tell me what the hell that was that back there?"

"What do you mean?" Cas asked, to which Dean gave him an unamused look. Cas could tell from the look on Dean's face that he was about to get chewed out.

"The way you got all bent out shape about taking me and Alex on our little field trip? Don't ever challenge me like that again."

Cas looked away, agitated. Dean stepped closer, his voice lowering gruffly. "You know, as much as I _despised_ you and my sister together, I need you to get your crap handled, and pronto. If Alex, the one from our time, could see what the way you roll these days… the women, the drugs, the days on end you stay wasted, with chicks you won't even remember the name of the next day… what do you think she'd _say_, man?" Cas couldn't look at Dean in the eye. Dean sounded disgusted, and Cas felt disgust_ing_. He knew he was so lost and far away from what he should be. Dean wasn't done. He was bearing down physically on Cas, getting angrier and angrier.

"You think you're honoring her memory with this crap?" Dean continued, and Cas felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. "You're really over her _that easy_, Cas?" That final comment made something snap inside Cas, and he looked sharply at Dean, struggling to control himself. "I will _never _be _over_ her, Dean."

Without any warning, Dean shoved him back against the truck violently, his voice a harsh growl. "Well if that's true, you sure as hell have a funny way of showing it!"

Cas grabbed Dean roughly and shoved him back, all of his pent up anger and sorrow boiling over into something like outrage. "I _loved_ her, Dean!" Both men were frozen like that for a moment, fistfuls of the other's jacket in their hands. Breathing heavily, shaking, Cas struggled to maintain a straight, calm face. "You _know_ I loved her. More than _anything_!" His voice was bordering on desperate. "But I don't know how to do this anymore!"

Dean shoved him and let go, bitter. "It's a damn shame what you've become, Cas."

Cas only glowered, struck by the irony of it. "I could say the same for you, Dean."

There was a brief silence, and Dean let the comment go, looked Cas up and down judgmentally. "I can see you're shaking, man. What kind of crap are you on now?"

"Nothing," Cas admitted, looking away. "Which is the problem."

Dean scoffed at him, disgusted. "You picked a hell of a time to start rehab, Cas."

"Dean—"

"No—shut up. I don't wanna hear your lame excuses anymore. Nothing you ever say can make this—" he vaguely gestured at Cas, "okay with me. Just hold it together a little longer. We need to do this right, and kill the devil. You with me?"

Cas's jaw clenched. "Yeah, I'm_ with_ you," he replied caustically. He looked at the man who he used to call his good friend, and felt nothing but bitterness and shame and regret. Dean was looking at him as though Cas were the biggest disappointment and failure he had ever seen.

The sound of approaching footsteps on the crunching gravel alerted them that they were no longer alone. "Everything okay here, guys?" Dean from 2009 asked. Alex was behind him, totally unaware of what had just happened, hefting her gun.

"Yeah, everything's just _peachy,_" 2014 Dean said, and brushed past them roughly. "God, that guy is a douche," the other Dean said, watching him go.

Alex chuckled at that. Cas looked at her out of the corner of his eye, the sight of that little smile making his heart twist in ways he couldn't bear. He motioned to his truck, turning away before either of them could see his face. "Let's go. We're about to move out."

* * *

The truck bumped down the back road they had turned off onto, and Cas glanced to his side. Dean was still awake, but Alex had fallen asleep about thirty minutes into the drive. Her head lolled on Dean's shoulder, and he stared out the window tersely. Cas returned his gaze to the dark road ahead. This was so risky, and he couldn't believe he was actually driving these two to the place where they should be the furthest from. He blinked a few times, trying to stay awake, trying to stay alert. He felt horrible physically, suffering from sobriety. He hadn't been this clear in awhile, and he remembered why. Everything hurt, and he couldn't stop his mind from going to all the dark places he so desperately wanted to pretend didn't exist.

Dean was digging through the glove compartment. "You got anything for a headache?" he pulled out an orange medicine bottle and squinted at it. "What the hell are _these_? Amphetamines?"

Cas snatched the bottle from him. "Give those to me."

"What the hell are you doing with those?" Dean asked, sounding genuinely shocked and even a little offended. Cas shook his head, shamefaced, but trying hard to just stay aloof, calm. "Nothing, today."

Dean sounded hesitant. "Uh, right... don't get me wrong, Cas. I, uh. I'm happy that the stick is out of your ass, but—what's going on—w-with the drugs and the orgies and the love-guru crap?"

Cas gave him a sidelong glance. "I'm not an angel anymore."

Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Yeah, I went _mortal_," Cas said, with distasteful emphasis on the last word.

"What do you mean? How?"

He thought a minute about how to answer, shook his head tiredly. "It wasn't by choice, if that's what you're asking. I think it had something to do with the other angels leaving. But when they bailed, my mojo just kind of—_psshhew!_—drained away. And now, you know, I'm practically human. I mean, Dean, I'm all but useless. Last year, broke my foot, laid up for two months." Without warning, he remembered—Alex bringing things to him when he had been stuck in their cabin—doodling on his cast a few times (a few appropriate things, and a few maybe not so much)—dropping a kiss on the top of his head when he had been complaining about how much he hated sitting for so long. His chest tightened at the memories.

"So, you're human," Dean was saying. "Well, welcome to the club, I guess."

Cas just shook his head, laughing humorlessly. "I used to belong to a much better club. Look at me. I'm powerless. I'm alone, I'm drowning. Not even sure why I even bother getting out of bed most days."

Dean looked at him strangely. "Geez. So… the drugs? The women?"

Cas sucked his cheeks in, stared at the road ahead, loathing himself. "I guess that's just _how I roll_."

Dean looked deeply bothered. "Right. Yeah." Cas fell silent, his grip tight on the steering wheel, his stare blank and straight ahead of himself.

* * *

They arrived to the outskirts of the city just before sunrise, and the convoy stopped. Cas put his truck into park and looked down at Alex, whose head lolled awkwardly on his shoulder—he'd taken a sharp curve a few minutes ago, and she'd just kind of fallen into him. Dean was already getting out, slamming the door behind him. Cas looked down at Alex's sleeping face, so familiar and so missed. Hesitantly, he gently brushed a few strands of her hair away from her face. Her skin was so soft under his fingertips. Her quiet breathing and just barely parted lips were the most beautiful thing he could ever remember seeing. There was so much pain in his chest and his throat closed up in grief.

Cas pulled away, shaking, trying to get himself together. His entire nervous system was shot to hell. Could he do this? He needed a hit of something, or a strong drink. It was all too much to handle for him. He glanced at the floorboard, where he'd stuck the bottle of amphetamines. But then, beside him, Alex stirred, sitting up slowly, squinting a little. "I fell asleep?" she asked groggily.

"Yeah," he confirmed, trying to control himself. "We're here. Just waiting for a few others to arrive, I think."

She sighed and stretched a little, oblivious to the way he watched her. "Okay. So, let's go kick Lucy's ass, huh?"

He couldn't help it. He did have to smile a little at that.

Alex got out of the SUV, shutting the door behind her. The sun was just coming up, and it looked like it would be a dim, overcast day. It was already warm out. She went to the back of Cas's SUV, where the tailgate was down. Dean was already with the others, who were congregated around Risa's SUV, maybe about forty feet away—why had he parked so far off? Alex peeked around the edge of the car, up toward where Cas was. He was just standing there, staring at nothing, in front of the driver's side door.

Momentarily forgetting her gun, Alex went over to him. "Hey—you okay?"

He took a step away, his back to her and the car. Then turned around, looked at her plainly, his featured etched with a haunted expression. "No. I am not okay."

Hesitating, Alex went to him, put a hand on his shoulder gingerly. Wished she knew what to do or say. Wished she knew what had happened to him to break him this way. At her touch, he visibly became emotional—and Alex pulled her hand back, like she'd done something wrong. She backed up a little, but his hand shot out to grab her arm. "Wait."

"What?" She asked. He looked strange, and just stared at her, looking like he had something to say, but couldn't get it out. "_What_ Cas?" she asked, louder this time.

He shook his head, his eyes staring down at the ground, then someplace off beside him before coming to rest on hers. His expression was full of a pain she didn't understand. "Some mornings I'll wake up, and for just an instant, I—I forget. I forget you're gone. And I turn over and see you're not there and..." he was barely holding tears back, and Alex wasn't sure how to react. "You were the _one_ bright spot left in this world for me," Cas continued shakily. "All the shit I've done to myself these past few months… it's all to forget the pain."

He inched just a little closer. "Alex…" he trailed off, his expression desperate, intense. "Please… I..." Alex waited, frightened. His intensity was palatable, and he looked half-sick. He looked like he was about to ask for something impossible, or something uncomfortable.

"I want…" he squeezed his eyes shut, rubbed his forehead with his fingertips, refocused. "I _need_—" he got frustrated again, and Alex waited, then jutted her face forward, raised her eyebrows. "Out with it Cas. What is it? You're really freaking me out."

His expression was strange and hesitant. Finally, he swallowed, and his voice was just above a whisper. "Kiss me."

"W—what?" she asked, her stomach dropping, her expression blank.

"_Please_," he said, his voice just a broken whisper. "I just… I can go in there and face the devil, face death, the whole nine. If you kiss me." He wet his lips nervously. "One last time," he paused, thinking of something, and frowned, then smiled in the softest, saddest way. "Or… first, I guess. For you."

Alex's mouth hung open slightly. "I… uh…" she had quickly become flustered, breathless. His expression was so pleading, and then he gently caught her hands in his. At the touch of his warm, dry skin against hers, she felt her entire body seem to flush in warmth. "A dying man's wish," he said softly.

"But... you don't _know_ you're dying," she protested weakly. A muscle in his cheek jerked, and his gaze faltered, the softest self-deprecating smile on his lips. "I have been for quite some time."

Alex looking up at him hesitantly, her heart hammering faster than she could ever remember. For some reason, she couldn't find the strength to say no—and besides that she thought in the most secret place of her mind, this was an opportunity she might never get again—because she _had_ fantasized about this. She had. She would never admit it to anyone, ever, but she had pictured herself with Cas in a lot of ways that made her blush. But now, with him actually in front of her, actually asking for a simple kiss—she felt more afraid than she ever remembered.

Her entire body was rigid in anxious anticipation. What if she couldn't do it? What if he kissed her, and it wasn't what he was expecting? But she just nodded, and breathlessly told him "Okay, Cas."

His expression changed to something else altogether, and she thought she saw his breathing hitch. The intent and the earnestness and the _trepidation_ in his eyes made her dizzy. His chest touched hers as he closed the distance between them, one of his hands came to the side of her neck, the pad of his thumb tracing her jaw. Cas leaned down, the side of his nose brushing against the side of hers as he softly pressed his lips down onto to hers, giving her a careful, measured, chaste kiss... instinctually, she could tell he was holding himself back for her benefit… and yet there was a visceral thrill that raced up Alex's spine, her entire body responding to the simple touch with overpowering sensations, her eyes falling closed without her even realizing. He drew back, just a little and just for a second, his lips soft and open, just centimeters from hers—she could feel him breathing against the skin of her lips. His hand, now at the back of her neck, gently pulled her to him again, guiding her. He kissed her again, a soft, aching little touch that was maddening, that was _infuriating_. She suddenly felt panicked, like if she didn't have _more, now_, she would die.

And so, with a boldness she didn't quite recognize in herself, Alex threw caution to the wind and pressed into him, tilted her chin up further, grabbing a fistful of his shirt as she kissed him fully, openly, almost desperately; her other arm reaching up and and circling around his neck, pulling him closer to her. Her sudden actions seemed to unleash something in him—there was a low sort of broken down moan from someplace deep in his throat, and she felt one of his hands crush against the small of her back, pulling her firmly against him. His other hand was tangling in the hair on the side of her head. She could feel his heartbeat thundering against her chest, fast. His mouth moved with hers now boldly, openly, guiding her into a deeper kiss, and Alex felt like her body literally had been lit on fire. She couldn't concentrate on one thing—it was all so much—the way their mouths were entangled, the sound and feel of his labored breathing, the warmth and solidness of him everywhere against her, so indescribable, so beyond stunning, so unlike what she had imagined.

Their breathing was becoming heavy and noisy in each other's mouths, and the way he pulled at her, his hands on her back, then her waist, then her hips, was becoming more and more frenzied. Alex heard a strangled sort of moaning gasp escape her mouth and into his as her back hit against the side of the SUV. She might have imagined it, but she swore he whimpered as his hands skimmed down to her hips and grabbing roughly, lifting her up easily, pinning her against the truck almost brutally, his body pressed hard against hers. She didn't even consciously realize that she wrapped her legs around his waist or locked her arms around his neck, hands gripping his head tightly—she was completely, totally caught up in the way he kissed her: wild and free, desperate and hungry, with his whole body. Like she was the only thing he wanted in the world, like she was something that intoxicated him. As he held her like that and kissed her so furiously, so passionately, she couldn't deny it. She wanted him_ so, very, badly._

The sounds of more cars pulling in nearby cut the moment short and they broke apart, breathing heavily, stunned. Cas gazed at her with eyes full of raw emotion. She could only stare, shocked by what had just happened—wanting more, reeling, aching.

Cas hesitated... and then gently pushed a strand of hair back from the side of her face, never looking away from her, his eyes full of memories, of unspoken things. Alex knew he was remembering moments she hadn't even lived yet. And she might not have known much, but after that kiss, she knew one thing for sure. This man, this version of Castiel, had loved her. _Loved_. The proof was in the way he was looking at her, the way he had kissed her. The flowers at her grave. The clothes still neatly folded in her drawer. The things he carried of hers. So overwhelmed, she touched the side of his face with a tenderness she hadn't even known she felt. His vivid blue eyes seemed so full as they searched hers.

It was suddenly too much, and Alex pushed away, slid down, overcome. She walked a few steps off, her back to him. She didn't want him to see her face. She took a few shaky breaths, trying to gather her thoughts, trying not to freak out completely. She felt him come up behind her, and there was a long pause.

"You asked me how you die." She turned around—was he going to finally tell her? He was pensive, grim, and looking somewhere off to his left, remembering. "You and I went on what was supposed to be a simple mission. Recon, far outside the city. But we got cut off, and there were Croats, too many of them, so many more than we thought. And, by the time we escaped…" his voice softened, his eyes shut. "You were infected with the virus. I got us out of there, but… you begged me to kill you before... before the change." He opened his eyes again, and she saw that they were shining with tears. "I said I couldn't, not with… the…" he swallowed, blinked, tried to stay composed. "But I had to." He looked right at her. The raw pain on his face suddenly made sense. "And I did."

Alex shook her head, wordless, horrified.

Cas looked down. "I was supposed to be your protector. Forever. And I failed, miserably. I hate being just a _man_." He took a deep breath, cleared his throat, seemed to recover a little. "The point of me telling you this is… you and Dean have to change it. _Have to_. Because_ this_ —" he looked around, gestured at nothing in particular, then back at her, "isn't how it's supposed to be."

"Cas, I—" she started, but was cut off by a familiar, gravelly shout over somewhere behind the other cars. "Hey! You two clowns comin'?" One of the Deans yelled. The other one bellowed, "We don't got all day!"

"Coming, Deans," Alex called back. Cas was already headed toward the back of his truck, pulling out their guns, as Alex smoothed her hair, straightened her tank top… both of which had gotten a little askew and disheveled. Cas saw her straighten herself, and gave her the smallest little coy smile at that—he looked so boyish, so much younger in that moment. She smiled back, suddenly feeling shy—she tucked her hair behind her ears. He hoisted his gun, and then tossed her hers.

* * *

Dean and Dean headed up the group, taking the lead about ten paces in front of everyone. 2014 Dean glanced back at Cas, Risa, and Alex, noticing that Cas and Alex were close to each other, that Cas kept looking at Alex every few seconds. Dean gritted his teeth, stepped a little closer to himself. If this guy really was him in 2009, which he was pretty sure he was, then he deserved a warning.

"Hey, word to the wise," he said, garnering a cursory sidelong glance from himself. "Keep Cas and Alex away from each other, you hear me? If it weren't for him, she'd still be alive, and I'm pretty sure he'd still have his angel juice."

"Huh?" Dean asked, clearly not following.

"Just do what I said. At the first sign of… I dunno, interest or _whatever_, just… don't let it happen."

"Cas and _Alex_?" Dean asked in a low, disbelieving voice. "Like, as in, _together_?" He suddenly seemed to think it was a joke, and chuckled. "Come on, man. What are you smoking?"

"Just shut up," Dean snapped, exceedingly annoyed with himself. "Trust me. They'll undo each other. Destroy each other. It's a train wreck waiting to happen."

Dean sobered, looked back behind them at where Alex and Cas followed. The way future-Dean had said that didn't sound like he was lying.

* * *

Just outside the Jackson County Sanitarium, Alex glanced again in the direction that both Deans had gone about five minutes ago. They only had a couple more minutes until they stormed the building ahead of them where Lucifer was.

After her Dean had asked for "a word with himself," the two Deans had disappeared behind a building. She didn't think she could wait any longer, and turned to Cas, who was beside her. "I'm gonna go find the Deans."

"I'll come with you," he said, but she shook her head, standing up. "No. I'll be right back."

He stood up too, looking terrified. "No, Alex, I can't let you go alone."

She stopped, looking at him plainly, warningly. "Stay here," she repeated. "I'll be back."

And he did, but he looked so conflicted about it, so worried. Alex didn't see, because she was hurrying off. That was the last time she would see that version of Cas. If she had known that then, she would have looked back at him again. But she hadn't known.

She darted over to the building she'd seen the Deans go behind, and when she rounded the corner, she stopped short—one Dean was standing over the unconscious form of the other. "Son of a bitch," she muttered, cautiously approaching Dean. It wasn't her Dean. Her Dean was the one laying on the ground. "Care to explain?" she demanded suspiciously.

"Just a little… disagreement," he said, eyeing her with a look she didn't like.

"A little disagreement that ended with you knocking my Dean out? My _ass. _You liar."

He shook his head, laughed a little. "I've missed you." The smile faded. "I forgot how sassy you are." He looked oddly stricken, but only for a second. He lunged and reached out and grabbed her hard by the arm. "Sorry, Al. I recognize that look. You were about to run. Well, I can't let you do that. See, Dean here was gonna warn everyone that I'm going in the back while they go in the front."

Alex didn't pull away. She was too shocked. "You're using those people as a _diversion_? Even _Cas_?"

Dean yanked her closer. "I _have_ to, Al!" He was breathing hard, and his eyes were crazed, wild. "I got to kill Lucifer, and I've run out of damn options—what the hell else am I supposed to do?"

Alex opened her mouth to argue with him, but he cut her off. "Listen to me, Alex. _Do not _get involved with Cas. I'm begging you." He paused, his face full of a pain she hadn't seen there before. "He's bad news. He's the signature on your death certificate."

"What do you mean?" She asked, frowning. But he just shook his head, looked at her sadly. "I'm sorry about this. I am." Without hesitation, he drew back and punched her, hard, and she fell to the ground unconscious. Dean Winchester stood over his baby sister, breathing hard, unable to believe himself on the one hand, but also to the point where he couldn't afford to care anymore. He had one thing left to do. One thing. Kill the devil. And he wasn't going to let his sister or himself stand in the way.

Dean dragged Alex about fifty feet off, down an alleyway and crammed her between a dumpster and a trashcan, figuring that when the 2009 Dean woke up, if he couldn't find Alex, that would stall him a little. Dean looked at his unconscious sister, and allowed himself a final moment of gentleness. He knelt down and moved her hair off of her face. She really was so beautiful. She had been so full of life. Bitterness swelled in his heart as he remembered the day she died in 2013. It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair—everyone he loved had died. He stood up, Colt in hand. Well, now it was the devil's turn.

* * *

When Alex came to, she sat up, breathless, panicked, and beside a smelly dumpster. _Shit! _How long had she been out? She scrambled to her feet and ran, trying to find her bearings. There was wind and lightning, but no other sounds—no gunfire, no shouting. She rounded a corner, and halted almost in mid-step—in front of her, Dean and—"_Sam_?"

He was wearing a white suit, and looked at her with an odd, lifeless smile. "Hello, Alexandra."

Beside her, Dean was shaking his head. "That's not Sam, Alex. That's _Lucifer_."

"What? _No._" Alex breathed, suddenly understanding why Zachariah had told made them come here, had insisted they needed to see. Lucifer laughed a little at her protest. "Oh, _yes, _Alexandra. Yes." Absolute horror overcame Alex.

Lucifer then looked at Dean, a patronizing smile on his face. "While this little family reunion of ours has been sweet, honestly, I have things to do." He looked at both in turn. "Goodbye. We'll meet again soon." He turned to go.

"You better kill us now!" Dean shouted. Lucifer turned back around. "Pardon?"

"You better kill me now. Or I swear, I will find a way to kill you. And if _I_ don't find a way, _she _will. One of us will be the end of you, I _swear _to you."

"Fascinating. Well, _I_ swear _this_ to _you_. You won't say yes to Michael. You won't kill Sam, you won't be able to save Alex from her own foolish choices…" He shrugged almost modestly. "Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Sam will die, Alex will die. Nothing you can do will change that. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up—here. I win."

Dean shook his head, his expression completely tortured. "You're _wrong_." Lucifer just smiled. "See you in five years, Dean."

There was a ground-shaking roll of thunder, and lightning seemed to crack the sky in two. And Lucifer was gone. Alex and Dean looked at each other, aghast. Then Dean grabbed at Alex, catching sight of something behind them—Zachariah, and he was reaching for them.

Suddenly, they were in the quiet motel room in Kansas City. Alex almost fell over, dizzy from the sudden change. "So, Winchesters." The two of them turned to see Zachariah behind them, smiling. "Oh, well, if it isn't the ghost of Christmas screw you," Dean growled.

The angel ignored the comment, looking between both of them animatedly. "You saw it, right? Both of you! You saw what happens. Dean, you're the only person who can prove the devil wrong. Alex, you're reasonable… tell your brother here—just say yes. Avoid all that pain, all the sad outcomes, all the death and guilt." He raised his eyebrows, smiled a little bigger. "Huh, Dean? What do you say?"

Alex looked at Dean, and for a moment, she had no idea what he would say, what he would do—they had just been to a future where Sam's body was Lucifer's vessel, where Alex was dead, where Dean was a shell of himself.

Dean turned away from Zachariah. "I say… nah."

"'_Nah_?'" Zachariah's smile was gone. "You telling me you haven't learned your lesson?"

Dean turned back around. "Oh, I've learned a lesson, all right. Just not the one you wanted to teach." He stood in front of Alex protectively, but she wasn't sure what good that would do. Zachariah could probably rip them to shreds with a single thought. Still, she inched a little closer to her big brother.

"Well, I'll just have to teach it again!" Zachariah said, his expression murderous. "Because I got you now, boy, and I'm never letting you—"

And suddenly, they were somewhere else entirely, standing beside a road, under the light of a street lamp. And there, between them, holding them each at the arm, above the elbow, was Castiel. He gave them a little smile as he let go.

"That's pretty nice timing, Cas," Dean commented, looking at Cas with a lot of relief. Alex was doing the same—seeing Cas as he was supposed to be—trench coat, clean-shaven, looking in his right mind again—almost counteracted all the heaviness of the past three days spent in 2014. Almost.

"We had an appointment," Cas was replying to Dean, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. Dean put a hand on his shoulder. "Cas… don't ever change." Cas smiled a little more at Dean, then looked at Alex. His expression flickered, as if he were noticing something off. She looked away, her pulse a little faster than normal.

"How did Zachariah find you?" Cas asked Dean. "Long story. Let's just stay away from Jehovah's Witnesses from now on, okay?" Dean pulled out his phone. "What are you doing?" Cas asked. Dean glanced at him as he scrolled through his contacts. "Something I should have done in the first place. Calling Sam." He walked a couple steps off, phone to his ear.

_Thank God_, Alex thought. At least one good thing would come out of that crazy trip to the future. She glanced up again. Cas was watching her intently. "Alex. What happened? What did Zachariah do?"

She still couldn't quite look him in the eyes. "He, uh, sent us to 2014. To see the future. What he said would happen, if… if we don't stop it. If Dean doesn't say yes to Michael." She trailed off, finally looked at him from under her lashes. "It was pretty... crazy."

He was frowning intently. "In what way?"

She was having trouble forming sentences. "Try every way." She looked at him kind of sidelong, trying to reconcile the Cas of 2014 with this one. They didn't even seem like the same person—and she couldn't help but remember, in torturous detail, what she and the Cas from 2014 had done beside a beat up old truck. She almost felt ashamed, like she had done something behind this Cas's back—but it had been with him, only, a later version of him—she was kind of falling apart inside, but tried to keep eye contact, tried to appear fine and normal.

Castiel frowned slightly, his eyes narrowed in confusion as he looked at her. "What is it?"

"What? Nothing…" she said, looking at him and shaking her head, trying hard to appear normal. But he didn't seem to be buying it. His head was tilted to the side. "You've never looked at me like that before." Castiel said.

Alex felt entirely vulnerable, as if she had been found out. "What is it?" He asked. He sounded distinctly suspicious, or maybe it was her guilty, confused conscience. He had stepped closer, and she was looking up at him, similarly to the last time she had, right before they had kissed. She couldn't control herself. She was breathing faster, remembering every little detail of those lips, that mouth—_oh God._

"Something's wrong," he said levelly, searching her eyes. She swallowed hard, shaking her head, trying to think of anything but this man in front of her. "No. I'm fine. I'm… _totally fine_. It was just, a really dark future and uh, I had a hard time with it." Well, that was true enough, wasn't it. "And I feel really, really run over by it, really overwhelmed and not sure of, stuff, and uh emotional things, that's all." She wanted to die. She sounded like a stuttering, fumbling mess.

Cas seemed to let it go. But he was still looking at her suspiciously. Dean was coming back, putting his phone in his pocket. His intrusion was a blessed relief. "So, Sam's gonna meet us halfway."

Speaking of Sam… Alex looked at Dean. "Dean, did you know? About Sam being Lucifer's vessel?"

At that, Cas looked distinctly surprised, but stayed silent, just listening as Dean replied.

"Yeah. The other me told me. And, actually, Sam told me. Last night, here in 2009, when he called in the middle of the night."

Alex was hurt, immediately. He had never once mentioned anything to her about it, and it wasn't because he'd lacked opportunity. "Why didn't you _tell _me?"

"Dunno. Guess I hoped it wasn't true," Dean said. "I didn't want you to be worried if you didn't have to be." He shook his head, looked at Cas, who had been listening silently. "Cas, I _begged_ myself to say yes to the angels."

Cas squinted. "I don't fully understand that sentence."

Dean paused. "Right. It's kinda trippy. Long story, actually. Listen, can we just fill you in later? I'm tired as hell and me and Al need to hit the road if we're gonna meet Sammy in the morning."

Cas nodded. "Of course. You have my number."

Dean held up a finger. "Can you bring the Impala here, or…?"

"Oh. Of course." Cas disappeared for all of three seconds, and suddenly, the Impala was right there in front of them, sitting on the side of the street, and Cas was where he had been three seconds ago. Beaming, Dean clapped Cas on the shoulder. "You are one handy guy to have around, Cas," he said, fully pleased.

"Call me when you are ready to discuss the events of this journey to 2014," Cas said.

"We will," Dean said.

Cas glanced at Alex, who had already been looking at him. And then he was gone.

* * *

Life was back to normal again. Dean driving the Impala, Alex in the passenger seat. Except, she felt like everything had changed. Seeing a future where you died, your family shattered to pieces, your angel fell apart at the seams… it left her feeling tired, heavy, afraid. "You're awful quiet," Dean commented, as if reading her mind.

"A lot on my mind," she replied vaguely.

"Me too. Glad we got outta there." He chuckled. "I was such a friggin' jerk, huh?"

She shrugged. She didn't feel in the mood for joking. She could feel Dean looking at her sidelong. "Listen," he said. "I know this much for a fact. You're not dying in 2013. Sam is not gonna be Lucy's chew toy. And, hell. Cas isn't gonna end up a mystic stoner guy. Not if I have anything to do with it. That version of the future will not happen."

Alex looked out her window, troubled. "But what if it does? Lucifer said—"

"Aw come on, you're gonna listen to that twerp?"

Alex gave him a weird look—he had just called Satan a twerp. Only Dean. "Nope," he said. "I'm changing the story. Calling Sam, getting him here back with us—that changes everything."

Alex looked down at her lap. She hoped that were true.

Dean cleared his throat. "Listen, I told myself… er, the 2014 me told me to watch out for something. For you and Cas. As in, together."

_Oh shit. _Alex scowled, immediately feeling like she had been discovered. "Don't be ridiculous."

Dean looked at her intently between glances at the road. "You're not, I dunno, into him, or…?"

"Dean!" Alex exclaimed, hurriedly trying to get him off this awkward train track. "Cas is not even a human being. Do you hear what you're asking me? Come on. The guy is practically asexual." She went silent. She had actually kind of believed that herself, until the whole brothel thing. Now, with that _and_ a full blown make-out session with future-him under her belt, she wasn't so sure. However, she was still talking, trying to convince him otherwise and get him to stop asking. "2014 Dean had it all wrong. The guy was a nutcase. No offense. Now shut up, you're giving me a headache."

"Fine. All I know is I'm not letting Lucy get Sam. I don't care whatever else happens. Not my family."

Alex stared out of the window if the Impala, not even fully hearing Dean. She was replaying the memories of 2014 over and over, unable to stop herself. She almost wished she _hadn't _kissed that future version of Cas, because now, she would never be able to look at the current version of Cas without remembering, without wanting more of the same. Her body could still remember how his hands, his hips, his arms, his mouth had all felt in excruciating detail. She shivered a little, but not from the cold.

* * *

**2014**

Cas held himself up at the window just barely, watching as Alex and Dean confronted Lucifer, then disappeared when Zachariah touched them. And with the knowledge that they survived, that they had gone back to their own time, Cas let go, too weak to support himself. He fell over and rolled over onto his back, his own blood pooling all around him from the several gunshot wounds. When Dean had returned with no 2009 Dean or Alex, Cas had almost lost his mind with worry, had almost decked Dean right then and there, accusing him of being an idiot, of risking their lives. Dean had commanded him to "calm the hell down, chill out Cas, they went inside ahead of us, okay?!" And sickened because he had _known_ he shouldn't have let her out of his sight, Cas had stormed the compound, so afraid that she would die _again_ and he would stand by _again_ and let it happen.

He groaned painfully, coughing and shaking. But at least he knew Zachariah had spirited them away, back to the year they had come from. A small assurance as he laid dying.

He stared at the ceiling in agony, trying with the last of his strength to pull out the photo in his pocket, the one he always carried. His hand shook violently as he brought the wrinkled photo close to his face. Even through his pain, his face relaxed briefly as he gazed at the picture—in it, he and Alex stood proudly wielding guns and confident smirks. They stood shoulder to shoulder. He remembered how happy they were then, despite the shape of the world around them.

His eyes went to her stomach, and he felt his throat clench. She hadn't been that far along. Tears sprang into his eyes as he looked at the woman he loved, carrying his unborn child, the child who never had a chance, the child only he and she had known about—a secret they had treasured together in the private, quiet, space of their relationship. Cas felt the tears running down his face now. The photograph had been taken just a week before they both died. One week after this photo was taken, he would be forced to kill both the woman he loved and the child she carried.

He remembered how she had begged him through tears, screaming for him to shoot her before the change, before she could turn on him. He had in turn begged her not to make him, said he couldn't, _couldn't_—she had grabbed his gun, pulled the barrel into her stomach, told him _he had to_. He knew she was right, but _God_. It had taken everything, _everything_ to pull the trigger.

The sound of the gunshot still haunted his every waking moment, every sleepless night, every moment not muddled by alcohol or drugs.

He remembered her shallow breaths, her blood all over his shirt, his trembling hands. And then, as only she could, she smiled at him through her pain, touched the side of his face, whispered something only for them to know. And they had shared one last, tender, goodbye kiss. Tasted each other's tears. She'd held his gaze, afraid. She'd clutched one of his hands, trying not to be. He remembered thinking, how did this happen? How did I _let this happen to her?_ He held himself together, just a little longer. So that the last thing she saw wasn't him falling apart at the seams. She would want him to carry on and be strong. And even though he had_ known_ that he couldn't carry on without her, he wanted her to think he would. He remembered his choked sobs as she died—her warm body going slack in his arms, her head falling to the side, the life leaving her. That day, he had learned what it meant to weep, to hope beyond any logical method that this moment wasn't real, to beg a God who wasn't even there to _please fucking change this!_ To Castiel, that moment was like dying, but the worst part was that he had to go on living.

In all the thousands and thousands of years he'd existed, he hadn't_ lived_ until he had met her. And that day, when she died, something in him had died, too.

Cas clenched the photo tightly, his vision wavering, his breathing labored. He blinked rapidly, his vision going dark. This was the end, but he suddenly didn't feel ready. He began begging whatever God or power out there to save the one he loved from this outcome, this reality. _This time, let the outcome be different. Please, please, please… give us one more try, a chance to live._ _And if not me, then at least her. _He blinked, as if sleepy.

And unable to hold on any longer, Castiel let out his last breath.

* * *

_Author's Note:__ I… am a HORRIBLE… AWFUL PERSON. OMG. You guys I cried so many times writing this chapter. I know I'm the author, but even I can't believe I did that to them. 2014!Cas… OMG… :'( I hate myself! I'm gonna go cry in a corner now. So; don't mind me over here sobbing… was this chapter everything I hyped it to be? What do you guys think? I apologize if you find any errors. I edited the thing three times but my eyeballs fell out and I couldn't do it again lol!  
_

_Anyway, you KNOW this will change everything for Alex… how will she handle being in 2009 after everything, especially THAT KISS?! Ughhh I can't even. Nope. Nope! BTW, I am so proud of that kiss! I worked on it forever to make it perfect. I do hope everyone else out there enjoyed. Re-reading the kiss honestly makes me wanna smash my keyboard in delight. Uhh anyway..._

_Will 2009 Cas find out about what happened? And, what about Dean telling Dean not to let anything happen between the two? Ughh this chapter, you guys, is my BABY. And the next chapter is gonna be so cool, too! Cuz most of it is a totally original storyline, if all goes as planned. YAY. I expect it to be up within 2-3 weeks, if work doesn't kill me._


	21. Tore Me Down

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 21 / Tore Me Down

"_And every silence all around me is screaming through the walls."  
- Copeland_

* * *

**Later That Day**

Dean and Alex got out of the Impala at the same time, slamming their doors in unison. Their hands went into their jacket pockets as they leaned back on opposite sides of the car, facing different directions—Sam would meet them here soon, just as agreed—and Alex was anxious for him to get there so she could maybe be distracted from herself. The late afternoon was cool and gloomy, a misty fog blanketing the landscape. There was the harsh cackling call of a crow somewhere nearby, and the muted whooshes of cars passing by on the highway.

"You okay, Alex?" From the sound of his voice, Alex could tell he'd turned his head slightly toward her.

_Was she okay._ That question was seriously laughable. But all she could do was shrug a little, her back still to him. "I guess."

There was a short silence, then a soft attempt at a chuckle. "Yeah, me neither." She heard him shift, breathe deeply, and let it out a troubled sigh. She knew he was thinking about everything they had seen in 2014. A world gone to complete and utter hell. Horrifying. Haunting. She hadn't slept since, actually, even though she was exhausted and needed sleep. She was too sick mentally and even physically to think about sleep or eating. All she could do was remember, _remember_. In graphic detail, and each time she remembered, it horrified her even more. Lucifer, in Sam's body—no light or life in his eyes, only chilling malice—Dean, a broken, harsh shell of a man who had lost his way—and… _Cas_. Alex shut her eyes at the thought of him, pained to the point that she felt she might lose control.

_Castiel._ Never in a hundred years would she have guessed he could ever turn out like that—fallen from grace and a messed up human just like the rest of them. Beaten, broken, scarred, destroyed in ways she didn't even really understand. And_ in love with her_, or at least who the person she would become...

_How do you come back from that?_ From going to the future and finding out the angel who saved your life, your brother's life, restored your voice, defied heaven to help your family… that _all he wanted_ before going to his death was a kiss to remember you by? And then, how did you deal with the fact that in that man's arms, under the spell of his kiss was the most _alive_ you had ever felt? And how did you even begin to confront the floodgate of intense feelings it all set free inside—_feelings you hadn't even known existed at all? _Or maybe you had known they existed somewhere deep down… but had tried to ignore them.

Alex didn't know how to process any of it, and felt like she was suffocating inside. If in the _moment_ when it had happened she had felt overwhelmed, she _now_ felt crazed and frantic. There were so many thoughts zipping through her mind, and all conflicted, jumbled, confused. She had kissed a man she didn't even really know. Yes, he was the future version of Cas, which was probably why she couldn't say no to him… but was it right? She felt almost guilty, like the Castiel she knew now would be shocked to find out, or that he would be offended or appalled. Maybe he wouldn't though, how could she know? Would he even care one way or another? Would he understand any of it? She sure as hell didn't. It was literally making her head hurt.

She knew one thing: she hadn't been able to stop thinking of him, _both_ of him. She was trying to figure out when the one she knew now in this present time became _that _Cas, the one who had so obviously loved her. Was it after the angels left and he became human? Had it happened _before_ then? Moreover, when had _she_ begun to feel that way about him? Although, if she were honest with herself… hadn't she already started, a little bit? ..._More_ than a little bit? She knew the answer was yes, even though she didn't want it to be.

He had blown through her life like a tornado, and in his wake, left so many moments that alone might not have meant much—but piled on top of each other, they now seemed to take up her entire heart. She remembered at first hating him and not trusting him and wishing he would screw off and stop messing up her life. And then somehow those feelings had changed into grudging, reluctant tolerance. _Then_ she had unconsciously come to some kind of appreciative, curious interest in him, in who this angel was. And _now_? She didn't want to think about it. But if he disappeared tomorrow and never reappeared, she would not be okay.

_Dammit. _She closed her eyes, remembering a clutter of moments and sensations in rapid succession. Every time he'd healed her—the touch of his hand, the blazing intensity in his eyes. How he hadn't understood her anger at him about his blind allegiance and unquestioning obedience to heaven—the look on his face any number of times she'd bitched him out. That look on his face any time she'd been hurt, even just a little bit. When he had healed her injuries with Uriel in the _same damn room _even after he'd been told to stop. And other moments stuck out in her mind, odder moments. That little sassy question he'd posed to her about romance novels, in the dark, on a porch under the stars. How easily she had tricked him into thinking a pinky promise was a deadly-serious binding agreement, but then when he understood, when he _got it_… she opened her eyes again, but the memories kept coming.

She thought about his disobedience to heaven for the sole purpose of giving her and Dean a chance to stop Sam, to stop Lucifer—when Chuck told them Cas was dead, her stomach had dropped and her body had seized up. She had cared, she had been affected, she had been _distraught_ inside.

She thought about how he wouldn't drop it, earlier that very day, when he asked what was wrong, she lied to his face and said nothing. And he _hadn't believed_ her. Her breathing hitched slightly, as she realized that she was pretty sure Cas wouldn't have even known or picked up on that a few months ago. He was _learning_ her. She wasn't sure if that made her feel afraid or something else entirely…

And finally, _finally_, then there was the thought of what he'd given her. Her voice—the gift of speech. When she really thought about it, her body threatened to break down into tears. How could someone do such a _beautiful _thing for her, and why? How had she ever deserved that kindness? When he said it cost him a lot, she believed that. She was afraid to find out what it had cost him. She was afraid.

All these moments and more had collected inside of her and she didn't know how to undo what they had done to her. Cas had gotten under her skin without her even realizing. He was so unassuming in that way. She hadn't guarded herself well enough, because she hadn't _expected_ it. Not only because she never really expected to have any kind of real relationship with a man—but because he _wasn't _a man. He was an angel. The body he inhabited wasn't even his—that was a man named Jimmy Novak. She forgot sometimes that Castiel was that blinding light that had glowed underneath his skin when he healed, when he exorcised. That the physical appearance of Jimmy Novak wasn't Cas at all. That Castiel was some kind of heavenly, celestial spirit who had traversed the universe for a thousands—hundreds of thousands?—of years. But even when she thought about this massive, baffling reality… it changed nothing about the way she felt. Only made her more confused, more conflicted and torn.

It was stupid to feel that way about someone you would never even have a chance with. It was like high school all over again, the one time she'd had a crush on that artist guy in ninth grade. He'd never noticed her, even though she'd tried _so hard_ to get his attention. It had broken her heart. _This_ was _that,_ all over again, but with a weird twist in fate where she'd traveled ahead in time (to a future that she had to ensure would never happen) where she _did_ get the guy. It was like fate got off on torturing her. And _damn_, did it know how. That kiss, the look in Cas's eyes had unlocked things inside her she hadn't even known existed, things she wanted now to forget. Because it would be easier not to remember that moment—the way he held her with such a tender longing, reverence, desire. She could still remember the way every part of him felt against her in the kiss that they had drowned each other in. She hated herself for it, but she wanted that again, so badly. And not from any random guy. She wanted it from _him_.

It made her breathing a little shorter. It made her feel a little ill. _How the hell_ was she supposed to deal with this? The more she thought about it, the sicker and more confused she felt. She didn't understand, and she wasn't sure if it were real at all. Maybe it was an elaborate prank by Zachariah designed to get to her, to mess with her head. Well, it had worked. Whatever confused feelings she had about Cas before were even worse. No, not worse, well yes, worse. And stronger. She didn't want to have them at all, because it was too much. She allowed herself to wonder if Cas, the one in her time here in 2009, if he cared about her in that way at all. She wanted to laugh at this point. She just couldn't imagine him choosing her in any version of reality. It just made no sense—she was the most abysmal excuse for a person, let alone a woman… it was probably all another a cruel joke.

"There he is," Dean said, and Alex started, remembering where she was. She looked up, momentarily distracted, thankfully, from her chaotic, spilling thoughts. She could see a dark car rolling toward them up the dirt road out of the fog, and she stood straight, no longer leaning against the Impala, watching. The car pulled to a stop.

Sam's familiar, hulking figure got out of the car, and Alex went to him, almost running the last two steps. For a moment, she was just _so glad_ to see her brother again, in one piece and not possessed by the devil. She momentarily didn't care about all the crap between them, all the water under the bridge—she was just relieved, so, _so_ relieved. They hugged tightly for a minute. Alex looked up at him tensely. "You okay?" she asked, searching his face. "Yeah," he said. He looked strained and nervous, but happy to see her, too. "It's really good to see you. I've missed you guys."

Dean, who had sauntered up slowly, was more reserved. "Sam."

Sam's expression fell a little bit. And then Dean pulled out Ruby's knife. For a second, Sam and Alex both stared at it nervously, but then Dean held it out to Sam, handle first. "If you're serious and you want back in… you should hang onto this. I'm sure you're rusty." Sam accepted the blade with hesitation, and Dean sighed, getting ready to apologize. "Look, man, I'm sorry. I don't know. But I was, uh—wrong."

Sam looked at Alex, then back at Dean. "What made you change your mind?"

Dean and Alex looked at each other very glancingly. "Long story," Dean said. "The point is… maybe we _are _each other's Achilles heel. Maybe they'll always find a way to use the two of us or the three of us against each other, I don't know. I just know we're all we've got. More than that—we keep each other human. We keep each other alive."

Sam looked touched by the words. "Thank you. Really. Thank you. I won't let you down." He looked at Alex. "Either of you." She gave him an attempt at a smile. Sam took a deep breath, fixed Dean with an intent gaze. "So, what now?"

"We make our own future," Dean said, shrugging, trying to seem confident and unaffected. But Alex noticed how tensely he held himself. Maybe Sam, did too, she wasn't sure. He just nodded at Dean's statement, sort of hesitant and earnest at the same time. "Okay. Yeah. Sounds good."

Dean turned and headed back to the Impala, obviously waiting for his siblings to follow, but Sam had fixed Alex with this inquisitive, close look. "Alex, you okay?"

She wasn't really able to maintain steady eye contact at his question, tone, and stare. She tried to sound convincing. "Uh, yeah, Sam. I'm fine." She gave him a thin-lipped smile, which she could tell he didn't buy—but after a lifetime of "I'm fines" on all three sides, maybe they had learned that fine wasn't a thing they would ever be again. He didn't say anything else.

She stared at the ground as she walked. No. She definitely wasn't fine.

* * *

**That Night**

Dean looked closely at Alex to make sure she was really asleep. She was breathing deeply, evenly, her mouth open a little bit. She was exhausted (hell, he was too)—but she hadn't slept at all in the three days they visited 2014 except in Cas's truck for maybe an hour. So, she was pretty conked out now. She slept with her arms crossed, on her side, head kind of turned into the pillow, hair all over her face, her breathing wheezy and deep. Yup, definitely asleep. She always looked so ridiculous asleep, and a little smirk tugged at Dean's mouth. He turned, beer in hand, and sat across from Sam in the dim motel room, focusing on his brother now, his momentary amusement at Alex fading. He really didn't want to have this conversation, but he knew he'd been putting it off for far too long now. With Sam back, with everything he'd seen, it was time. He'd already told Sam briefly about 2014 on the car ride that day, but there was something else, something that felt even bigger and darker eating at him.

He waited a couple seconds, getting up the nerve, while Sam typed away on the laptop, not paying attention. He cleared his throat gruffly. "Okay, look, Sam. We gotta talk." Sam glanced up curiously, ceasing to type. "About?"

Dean had his hands clasped on the table, and a tense jaw, his beer now sitting to the side, forgotten. "You're not gonna like it."

Sam hesitantly nodded, as if he understood. He shut his laptop, picking up on the fact that this was going to warrant his full attention. "The demon blood? Yeah, I kinda figured you'd want to talk about it. We haven't yet, I mean, not in depth." He paused, looking down, an exasperated little smile on his face, his eyebrows shooting up. "You kinda didn't _let _me before."

Dean ignored Sam's passive aggressive comment, cutting to the chase—it wasn't demon blood he wanted to talk about, not really. There was something almost worse. "I, uh, I know I promised you a few years ago we wouldn't talk about this, uh, particular incident again, but after everything that's happened… I think we gotta." He looked at Sam meaningfully, and for a second, his brother stared, confused. And then chilled understanding washed over Sam's face, and he went totally still and silent. He looked at Dean with a questioning, dread-filled gaze.

Dean forced himself to maintain eye contact. "_Come on_, Sam—I just came back from five years in the future where you said _yes_ to Lucifer and the world went to hell because of it. I need to make sure that's not gonna happen."

Sam's chin was low, his eyes staring at Dean balefully, nostrils flared. "It _won't_."

"How do you know that, huh?" Dean challenged. "I've been thinking about it, and _hard _too. All the things you've done up to now." He paused weightily. "And not just recently."

Sam looked cornered and pissed. "Dean, you_ promised _we wouldn't talk about that again."

"Yeah well that was before I knew you were Lucifer's friggin' vessel," Dean retorted, a little loudly. Sam's eyes fell away from his.

Dean's jaw worked, clenching and unclenching. He wanted to get up and walk away, but he needed to keep going. He stared Sam down. "Look, all I know is that I got to keep this family safe. And lately I've been thinking, do I have to keep this family safe from _you_?" Sam's eyes snapped up to his. "I need you to be straight with me. If we're gonna hunt together, if you're gonna sleep in the same room as Alex, you need to tell me you're not gonna go down that road. I need to know you are not going to say yes to Lucifer, _no matter what_."

Sam just looked at him, sullen and tense. "I told you. I'm _not_."

Dean sat back in his chair, at a bit of a loss at Sam's short answers, and getting mad. "You're gonna have to do a little bit better than that, Sam. I mean I hate to say it, but it makes sense now. Lucifer, wanting _you_."

Sam was glaring at the table, his cheeks hollow from his clenched jaw. "Because of the things I did as a kid."

Dean's eyes dropped, staring unseeingly into his lap. "Yeah."

Their eyes met at the same instant, guarded and mistrustful. Sam wet his lips, obviously trying to stay collected. "Look, I haven't done any of that stuff in like fifteen years, maybe more." He paused. "I promise." He looked earnest and _hurt_, which only further pissed Dean off.

Dean leaned in, voice a little lower. "Yeah, you're a real nice guy aren't you. You think I buy that sensitive, understanding crap you peddle? I've known you your _whole life_, Sam. And I know you're _not really that guy_." He paused, got quiet, couldn't believe he was actually going to say what he had been keeping in all these years. "I've seen how dark you are inside." Sam looked stung and fearful, and Dean just looked at him, grim. "I _remember_, Sam. You probably think I forgot, right?"

"_What_, Dean?" Sam muttered, looking like he was trying to brush it off, "It was just angsty kid stuff, like me trying to deal with being angry about everything. So what, I started a few fires at a couple schools, stole some stuff? No one was hurt, no one found out it was me."

"_I_ found out. I did," Dean said gruffly, and paused, feeling physically sick as he thought about it, barely able to look at Sam now. "You're lucky I never told Dad about any of that shit you pulled. But you know the fires and stealing weren't even what I was talking about."

Sam's eyes locked onto Dean's face, and he looked caught, guilty, afraid. There was a very long pause, where he struggled for words. "I—I don't know why I did that. I still don't know why, Dean."

"I do," Dean said grimly. "It was _Azazel_, Sam. That blood he dripped into your mouth? It pumped through you then when you were a kid. Just like it's pumping through you now."

Sam could say nothing, just looked down, agonized. He was shaking his head in absolute horror. "What I _did_... it wasn't me." Dean met his brother's agonized gaze, and he almost choked on the lump in his throat. "Sam… it _was_ you."

It had been a cold fall day. Frost on the ground, dead leaves falling off the trees. Dean and Alex had been playing hide and seek around one of the motels. Dad was gone, as usual. Sam had gone off on his own, probably to the gas station down the street. Maybe Alex was hiding behind the motel? Dean really didn't like it when she decided to get creative about her hiding spots. He always got worried if he couldn't find her right away. He told her a million times not to hide outside of the motels, but sometimes she did anyway, always so amused by his angry rants.

He had looked all over their room—no Alex—he had checked the lobby of the motel—no Alex. So he went around the back of the motel, heard a strange sound, like a cat crying. And rounding the dumpster, he froze at what he saw. Sam sat there in the corner made by the dumpster and the painted brick wall, and for just a couple seconds, he didn't notice Dean—and Dean saw it all. Sam was holding a mewing kitten in his hands. Scattered around Sam were dark furry, bloody lumps—Dean realized with horror that they were _dead kittens_ that had literally _pulled to pieces_. The most chilling part, was before Sam saw Dean there had been this chilling little smile, pleased and entertained, on his face. The word_ horror _was not strong enough for what Dean had felt seeing that.

Sam had seen him, started, face suddenly blank. For a minute, Dean had thought Sam was possessed, had grabbed him up and shoved him against the wall and shouted the exorcism chant—and _nothing happened_. And that meant the dead kittens, the blood splattered on the ground and on Sam's hands, that wicked smile he'd had on his brother's face—that meant it was _Sam_ who had done that. _Sam_. And with fear and shame and horror, Sam had broken down, claimed he didn't know why he did that, that he hadn't known what he was doing, please don't tell Dad, please don't tell Alex, I'm so scared, help me Dean, please help me. Dean had, in stony, scared shitless silence helped Sam get rid of the little kittens torn up bodies, wash the blood off his hands using a hose hookup on the side of the building. And after that, they wouldn't talk about it for years, didn't even acknowledge it had happened. Dean had never quite looked at Sam the same way, and Sam had never quite been able to look at Dean without shame touching the edges of his eyes. They both wanted to pretend it had never happened. But they both knew it had.

Even to this day, any time Dean saw Sam with an animal, he wondered if those kittens had been the first. Or the last. He wanted to believe it had been a crazy, one-off circumstance, but maybe that was denial. Sam had also started fires at school, in gas stations, and had stolen frequently. Dean had covered for him or ignored that stuff completely, figuring it was because they had such a hard childhood, because Sam was trying to express his frustration at the crap life they shared. That Sam just needed an outlet for his anger and disappointment. But… now Dean wished he had seen those signs for what they really were. That Sam was dark inside, and not because of anything he or Dad had done or not done. Because now, after all Sam's betrayals—the demon blood, beating Dean to a pulp, consorting with Ruby, lying constantly—Dean saw that his biggest mistake was blind denial. But he really wanted to_ believe _Sam could conquer this.

Maybe the worst part of what Sam had done was when he ruthlessly attacked Alex. When Dean had watched him standing over her like that, there was a horrible few seconds where Dean thought _he is going to kill her. _How could he risk that happening again? Because Dean knew, he _knew _that Sam was still struggling with this problem, this addiction. But there was this desperation to believe that Sam could change, could control himself, could fight the disease inside.

"Dean." Looking up, startled out of his gruesome thoughts, Dean realized Sam was staring at him, a little accusingly. "Listen, you said you'd stop holding that stuff over my head. So are you going to let it go, or aren't you?" Dean said nothing, and Sam's eyebrows knit together. "I would do _anything_ to take it all back."

"Yeah, you've said that before," Dean said dully.

"Because I _mean it_," Sam insisted, angry again.

Dean looked at him long and hard, then took another swig of his beer, not really even tasting the now lukewarm liquid. He set the bottle down, turned it in his hand, staring at it. "Yeah, I said I'd let that stuff stay in the past. But _you _said you were okay and then I find out a few weeks ago that you're sneaking around behind my back, drinking demon blood, lying to your family through your teeth. You chose a_ demon_ over your own family. You literally attacked your little sister as I watched. And you damn near killed _me_!" Sam looked at Dean resentfully, and Dean just stared back at him. "So, yeah. I got every reason to bring up the past. Because you're not okay."

"Really, Dean? I mean, are_ any _of us okay?" Sam asked with one of those little nervous laughs of his. Dean fell silent and Sam leaned forward intently. "Have you taken a good look at Alex lately?"

"Of course I have dude, I'm the one that's _been with her this whole time_!" Dean fired back, pissed at Sam's self-righteous attitude and tone. He poked his index finger down hard onto the tabletop for emphasis. "All the years and times you've disappeared, it's been _me_ and _her_. Dad, not always, you, not so much, but me and her, yeah. Always. So don't you try to tell me I don't know when something is wrong with her. She's _fine_."

Sam sat back in his seat with his arms crossed, looking at Dean with an air of superior annoyance. "Don't kid yourself, Dean. Something is really eating at her."

"_Maybe it's you, Sam!_" Dean exploded, shooting up to his feet. "Did you think of that?"

"Why is it _always me_, Dean?" Sam fired back, on his feet now too. The brothers were now practically shouting, not even remembering it was the dead of night and they weren't alone in the room. "There's _a lot_ more to this than what I did!" Sam roared, getting in Dean's face. "What about what _you've done_?"

A small, grumpy voice made them both turn. "Guys… it's the middle of the night. What the hell are you _yelling _about?" Alex was kind of sitting up halfway, looking groggy and annoyed, her hair sticking out to the side. "Nothing," Dean said, glancing tersely at Sam. "Go back to sleep."

She mumbled something that sounded like 'bite me,' groaned and flopped back down, rolled over and tossed her arm over her head.

Their conversation cut short, the brothers just kind of glared at each other, then Sam sat back down, re-opened his laptop and scowled at the screen, clicking the scroll pad harder than necessary. Dean swiped his beer bottle off the table angrily and paced for a minute, pissed off. It had been a lot easier with Sam gone. A hell of a lot easier.

Whenever Sam was gone, Dean had this tendency to believe they could work through their issues and not fight. And it never went that way, ever. Maybe it was because fate had been building them towards this divide since they had been born; this showdown that was supposed to go down between Michael and Lucifer. Dean scoffed at himself. He didn't even _believe _in fate—but with a sinking feeling in his stomach, he wondered if he should, if he were being a moron.

Dean glanced at his sleeping sister's form, then at Sam, hunched over the laptop. All Dean could think is that he hoped he wasn't making the biggest mistake of his life. Sam was a good hunter, a decent human being most of the time, and his brother who he loved deeply. _But could he be trusted_? All he knew is after what Sam had done, this was pretty much the last chance Dean could afford to give. And that thought in itself was heavy enough to break Dean's heart in two. He didn't want to think about it.

So he just sat down on one of the beds and crossed his arms. He wasn't going to sleep until Sam did.

* * *

**One Month Later**

Alex smoothed another page of Dad's journal down as she slowly flipped through the pages. She was careful not to wrinkle the pages or leave dog ears. She ran her fingers over words in Dad's swirled penmanship. Usually she looked through the journal for the purpose of research. But today she just was missing the way things used to be. When they were younger. Even though it had been shitty, it hadn't been_ this _shitty. She didn't miss Dad as much as she just missed a time when her brothers weren't walking on eggshells around each other and putting her in the middle of it. In fact, she didn't miss Dad much at all. Even thinking that made her feel guilty. But he hadn't been around enough to miss, and when he was around, she never felt like she lived up to his expectations. She'd never been able to just be herself around him. It had always felt hopeless and impossible, but she had still _tried so hard_ for _so many years _to be the kind of daughter he'd be proud of. Alex took her fingers off the page, thinking offhandedly about a nap. Right now, she just wanted to sleep and be dead to the world. She was tired to her bones. Tired, and lonely. She'd been keeping Sam and Dean at arms length because she didn't want them to see how messed up, how afraid, how freaked out she was.

The last month had been silent. No Cas. No angels. No demons. Just monsters of the week. Currently she and her brothers were in Nebraska in a town where people were being killed off by practical jokes—a girl had scratched her brains out after the kid she was babysitting had put itch powder in her brush. She and her brothers had traced the murders back to a boy named Jesse. Somehow—they weren't sure how yet, they had just met him earlier that day—his irrational fears were killing the townspeople.

Alex would have been really fascinated by the case in times past as it was so out there and unusual, even for them... but right now, she didn't even know why they were bothering, and felt like she couldn't care less either way. Wasn't the world about to end? And here they were doing grocery runs.

She was, in one word, tired. She hadn't slept well in forever, well—_her whole life_, but it had been worse lately. Lots of nightmares. More than usual. A lot of them involving Cas, the one from 2014. She kept dreaming about him dying alone, laying on the ground and choking on his own blood, afraid and alone. She would wake up sweating, panicked, sometimes even tearful. The weirdest and saddest thing was, if she and her brothers changed fate, she was mourning a person who would never really exist. But he had burned himself onto her heart. She could never forget. She _would_ never forget. She was kind of dreading seeing him again here in 2009, because she didn't know how she could look at him in the eyes without falling apart.

The door of the motel opened. It was Dean, by himself, keys jingling as he tossed them down. "Hey," she greeted, glancing up at him momentarily from the journal, trying to appear like she was okay. "Where's Sam?"

"Still out, digging up stuff on the kid," Dean said, and stopped in the middle of the room, looking at her tersely. "You okay?"

She didn't miss the confrontational frown on his face, but instead flipped another page of Dad's journal, not looking at him. "Yeah, fine."

"Uh _huh._" He let out a grumpy sounding sigh and came and sat beside her. Alex glanced up at him hostilely, silently warning Dean to back off while he still could, but he just stared back, unimpressed, and then asked, "Okay. So who pissed in your Cheerios today?"

Alex gave him a sullen glare. He tried a half-way concerned expression. "Come on Al, level with me. You've seemed…. I dunno, kind of out of it for the past few weeks."

Alex looked away silently. She had been expecting this, but still, she didn't want to deal with it. Both Dean and Sam had been giving her looks the past few weeks, trying to see what was wrong with her, why she had been so quiet. She'd been purposefully avoiding them. Making excuses and not talking much.

"_Tell me_," Dean prompted, and wouldn't look away. It wasn't a threat, but it almost sounded like he was warning her that she'd better or else. "I don't _know_," Alex muttered, evasively, defensively. "Nothing."

Dean gave her an annoyed look, crossed his arms. "Bullshit. Total complete bullshit."

Alex's eyes flicked up to his. "Fine. You wanna know what's wrong? How about every single damn thing, Dean?" She set Dad's journal down, crossed her arms, pissed off. "I used to think this life sucked and that was _before_ the whole Apocalypse, Lucifer, Michael thing. So if it didn't suck before, it blows now." She almost laughed. "You wanna know why I'm acting weird? Because _I don't think we can win this_. I don't."

Silence. Dean seemed surprised by her outburst, confused, as if it didn't make sense to him. "I'm not letting Sam say yes," Dean finally said, as if reminding her of something she should already know, and as if it would fix everything.

Both of her eyebrows shot up. "_Letting_?" He was serious, and Alex felt herself go cold. "Don't kid yourself. Sam's gonna do what Sam wants to do. He may be trying to play nice right _now_ to earn your good graces back Dean, but seriously. Are you that _dumb_? Sam's got enough pride to match yours, and then some."

Dean's scowl deepened, he held up his hands defensively. "Whoa, why are you getting on _my _case?"

"Well someone needs to," Alex snapped. "You're being stubborn and stupid about this. How many times has this exact issue gotten us an inch from losing our lives? Your bravado and your pride."

Dean looked stung, but more than that, he looked like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. His scowl had fallen. "You think I'm gonna say yes to Michael."

Alex almost wished she hadn't said anything at this point, because of the look on his face. She was suddenly grasping for a gentle way to be honest, and regretting her rude approach. She looked down, staring absently at a loose thread on the blanket. "I think they'll find a way to convince you. Whether it's using me or Sam or something else." She looked at him. "Yeah. I do."

His expression was sad. Hurt. "You should trust me more than that. After all we've been through?"

Alex bit the insides of her cheeks. Her voice was unsteady, but she looked at him squarely. She couldn't stop now. "It's _because _of all we've been through. I _know _you, Dean. Better than anyone else. They'll figure out a way."

His jaw clenched oddly, he looked down. For a minute, she thought he was going to concede that she was right. Then he shook his head, frowning deeply, and stood up, walked away. "No. You're wrong. I am not gonna say yes. I don't care what those sons of bitches threaten, what future they show me…" He turned back around, and he had this look on his face like complete conviction. "We're gonna find a way to avoid all of this. Fate and destiny and all that crap? I'm not letting it dictate my life." He looked like he was over it, done. "And by the way, do me a favor and stop feeling sorry for yourself all the damn time."

"That's not _fair!" _Alex protested, standing up, almost shaking at his left-field, blasé assumption. She was fighting tears all the sudden, tears that had come out of nowhere."I'm not… _feeling sorry_ for myself." She stared at him a second fearfully. "I'm _scared, _Dean."

Her brother looked a little taken aback, like he hadn't even considered that. Alex looked down, just kind of sad and quiet as she continued talking. "I don't wanna be afraid anymore." She looked at her brother pleadingly. "But have you looked at our family lately? We're torn _apart_. It's been nothing but fights and tension and us barely able to hold it together. I can't concentrate, I can't think straight. I can't sleep at night. I'm never hungry. All I can think about is what the future is gonna look like for us. Because if we're not together in this—the three of us, I don't think we stand one damn chance. Not one."

Dean seemed to be reeling, and opened his mouth to say something. At that exact moment, the motel room door opened, and Sam walked in, a stack of papers in his hand. "So, I found out some stuff about Jesse," he said, then looked up, took in their expressions, the way they were standing. He frowned slightly. His timing was absolutely awful. "Everything okay? What's going on?"

Dean glanced at Alex, who was sitting back down on the bed, expression hard to read. "Uh, nothing. Everything's fine. What'd you find out about Jesse?"

Sam clearly didn't believe it, but with one last questioning glance, dropped the subject.

And just like that, they all proceeded to artfully avoided the elephant in the room—just like they had for the rest of their damn lives.

* * *

**? ? ? ?  
**

Alex sat up, suddenly awake and very befuddled. She was in a bed with white sheets and a fluffy comforter, and the bed was in a nice, clean, bright carpeted bedroom. The walls were a soft beige color, the air smelled like clean towels or fresh laundry. Photos of children's faces dotted the walls. Sheer panicked confusion overcame Alex. _What the…?_ Above what was probably the closet door, there were wrought iron words that said "_Live - Laugh - Love_" in curly black script. Alex tilted her head to the side, puzzled. That was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. There was a porch to her left with big sliding glass doors that were currently open, letting in the sound of happy birds singing. She could see a manicured green yard through the railing of the porch, and was that a _Buick_ in the driveway? She stared around the room some more. This definitely wasn't a motel and she couldn't remember what had happened yesterday—_where had she been before this?_ She couldn't remember anything recent, her brain felt like total mush. She suddenly heard water running behind the closed door of what must be the bathroom. Immediately, she jumped out of the bed, tense, and backed up against one of the walls. "_Sam_!" She hissed, kind of awkwardly poised to fight or run, she wasn't sure which. "_Dean_?"

She nearly jumped out of her skin when the bathroom door opened beside her head. "Sweetie, you gonna get up anytime soon? It's almost seven o'clock."

She almost fell over, recognizing the voice before he walked through the door—_it was Cas_, but—what was he wearing? And what happened to his hair?_ And why had he just called her sweetie_? He was wearing a pair of tailored light-colored dress pants, a crisp, well-fitting white button up. His dark hair was slicked down and parted neatly on the side. He was slinging a red tie around his collar and using the mirror beside the bathroom door to watch himself do it.

Even though that looked like Cas, she was almost a hundred percent sure it wasn't. Was she dreaming? This didn't feel like a dream. Alex tilted her head to the side, freaked out, not sure at all what was happening right now. "Uh… Cas?"

"That's my name, don't wear it out," he said with an air of distracted annoyance, concentrating on his image in the mirror. He glanced at her, almost judgmentally. "You getting dressed or what?"

She hadn't even realized she wasn't in her regular clothes. She looked down, realizing she was in some kind of fuzzy bathrobe and pajama bottoms. What the hell was happening? She tried harder to remember where she had been before here, but everything was a jumble, her mind felt completely and utterly muddled, she couldn't _think_.

"I picked out an outfit for you," Cas said, nodding toward the closet door, and she followed his eye line, saw what he meant—a little red dress hanging on the closet door knob. She looked at it, looked back at him, incredulous. "Um _right_. I would never wear that."

He just glanced at her, amused. "Oh, really?" He snapped his fingers. And suddenly, she was wearing it. She gaped at herself—it was skintight and short, with a plunging neckline and no sleeves. She glowered up at him. He was just grinning, which looked strange on Cas's face. Almost creepy, in fact. "Looking good, hon!" He sauntered up, his half-done tie forgotten. He put his hands on her hips, started to pull her to him. "Hey!" she said, stepped back, shoving him. The back of her legs hit the bed. "Keep your damn hands off me!"

He pulled her to him despite the protest, a disturbing little smile on his face, and she couldn't break his strong, vice-like grip. "'_Hands off'_?" He laughed, patronizingly, put a hand on the side of her head, stroking her hair, petting her. "Oh Alex, sweetie, I can touch you however much I like. We're married."

Alex stared. "_Married_?"

"Um, _ye-es_," he said in a bizarre sing-song voice, and pulled her right hand up, where a huge glittering diamond sat on a silver band. It was gaudy as hell, and Alex almost recoiled at the sight of it. Suddenly, somehow, Alex _remembered_. She remembered that she and her brothers had been investigating some bizarre, cartoony deaths and Dean had theorized a trickster was involved. _Holy Shit. _And if she were right, it wasn't just any trickster. This had to be _the _Trickster. _Oh my God. _Okay. Now it made sense. Okay. She stared into the face of "Cas" and almost called the Trickster out right then and there, but then shut her mouth, realizing she had a chance here. She would pretend she hadn't figured it out and take him out when he didn't expect it.

Cas, fake Cas, had let go of her and was examining himself in the mirror, adjusting his perfectly knotted tie and straightening his cufflinks, then grabbed a piece of candy out of the bowl on top of the dresser, popped it in his mouth. Alex watched him from the corner of her eye, suspicion confirmed. "The kids are probably hungry," he said through the candy. "You should get a move on."

"The_ kids_..." Alex repeated, suddenly feeling very afraid. _None of this is real, _she reminded herself. And in the kitchen, she could probably find some kind of weapon—tricksters had to be stabbed with a wooden stake dipped in the blood of their victim. Wouldn't the victim be _her _in this situation? So all she needed was a stake. Surely she could find some piece of wooden furniture or something to use as a stake.

Cas was heading out of the bedroom door, looking at her expectantly, like he was impatient. Alex resisted the urge to shove him through the wall, and instead followed him downstairs, trying to appear as though she didn't know what was going on now. She didn't have to pretend for very long. They went down a massive staircase and through a lavish household—that was a complete zoo. There were children… _everywhere. _All of them had dark brown hair.

There was a shrieking screaming wail—a crash—a dog barking—screams of delight—and screams that were just screams—three kids ran past, rolls of half-unrolled toilet paper in their hands (..._why_?), she saw a couple more kids jumping on the couches, one standing on the table and practicing ballet with a bucket on her head, another one doing karate moves on another who was crying and screaming in protest—still more were throwing cereal at each other—one boy off by himself was walking on his hands and then fell backwards into a pile of toys—Alex felt completely overwhelmed, unable to set her eyes on how many there were. "_Holy shit._ How many damn kids do we have?"

"I lost count awhile ago," Cas said, shrugging, then gave her a disapproving look. "Also, _language_, hon."

They passed a little girl who was drawing stick figures on the wall with dark red lipstick—her hair was smeared completely in what appeared to be vaseline. "Jess, _no_ sweetiekins," Cas said as he passed, and picked the kid up, slung her over his shoulder like a sack of flour.

Alex didn't even have time to react, as two more of the kids appeared out of nowhere and started yanking at her skirt, shouting "Mommy! Mama!" and one of them was saying "I want cereal, I want cereal!" The other one seemed outraged by the suggestion and tackled the other one. "No, _pancakes_!"

There was a huge crash behind her, and she whirled to see a huge flat screen TV had toppled to the ground in the middle of the living room. Cas gave the little girl wailing on the floor a withering look. "That's why Daddy said not to use the TV as a balance beam, Jillian." He looked at Alex pointedly. "Alex—what are you doing? Take care of this."

"I don't—" she started, but then another kid ran up to her, an upside down squeeze bottle of jelly in hand, leaving globs of it all over the wooden floor. He had sticky purple jam all over his face. "I'm making jelly on poptarts, look Mommy! Yay!"

Something crashed into her leg—a little boy with shaggy brown hair, being tackled by another little boy with short hair. "Joey won't give me my monster truck!" One of them screeched. There was an enraged scream, and the other one grabbed the other by the hair. "Jared, it's _mine_!" They began rolling around on the floor, hitting each other.

Alex felt dizzy, turning around and seeing nothing but endless amounts of children doing insane things—she stumbled toward the kitchen, desperate to find a way to end this bizarre thing. "Johnny is eating my deodorant again!" someone said to her right, but she just kept walking toward the kitchen until she slipped on something wet—there was a bucket of mopping solution there beside her foot, a lot of it spilled onto the floor—one of the kids had his head dunked into it. Alex wasn't even sure what compelled her, but she stopped and plucked him out, holding him at arms length as sudsy Pine Sol dripped from his wet head. The kid screamed bloody murder and kicked like a madman, spilling the rest of the bucket everywhere. Alex backed away, stressed out and scared, despite herself—this is why she didn't like kids. They were like insane asylums on wheels!

"JENNA! GIVE THAT BACK!" and "Jamie! JAMIE! STOP JAMIE!" and "Jackson won't give me the markers, I WANT THE MARKERS!" Alex gaped, despite herself. All their names started with J. _Who the hell would do that? _

Cas was sitting at the kitchen table as kids, crazed like animals, bounced around him throwing things and fighting with each other. He opened a newspaper pleasantly, looked at her. "Coffee, please, hon," he said, and returned to his paper. Thoroughly pissed off, but resigned to not fly off the handle, Alex just turned around, went into the kitchen. She didn't miss the fact that as they had walked through the house, she had seen no doors. This wasn't a real house. There was little point trying to get out, she was pretty sure. So instead, she swept the kitchen with her eyes, trying to devise a plan.

She saw a bunch of stuff she wasn't sure of—pretty sure that was a blender, and that was some kind of toast-maker—ah ha, a knife block. And beside it, a bunch of spatulas and mixing spoons in a container. She saw a wooden mixing spoon there. Well, beggars couldn't be choosers. She took it out and cracked it in half over her knee, looked over her shoulder. The Trickster was still reading, not paying attention. She then grabbed a knife from the block and steeling herself, already grimacing before she even cut. She opened her palm up, held it flat, sliced into the skin. Shit, it never got easier, cutting yourself. Bright red blood flooded out from the cut across her palm and she stuck the splintered end of the wooden spoon against it, rolled it around in her blood. This better work. She glanced at the Trickster again, and for a second, felt her stomach lurch. Why did he have to look like Cas? It wasn't going to make this any easier. She grabbed the coffee pot in her other hand, held the wooden spoon behind her back with her bleeding hand, approached him slowly.

He glanced at her, cursory. Alex stood there a second, staring at him. He really did look like Cas, not exactly, but his face… he looked at her again, this time clearly annoyed. "Are you gonna pour it or _not_?" he asked, nodding toward his empty coffee cup, his face and tone completely douchey. That was all the reminding Alex needed that it wasn't really Cas, and she whipped out her makeshift weapon and leapt forward, stabbing the splintered, bloody end of the spoon into his chest, purposefully not looking at his face—she couldn't. But she did hear him scream out in pain. She stumbled back, temporarily horrified. All the kids had stopped and were staring at her, and Cas was slumped in the chair, the spoon sticking out of his chest at a weird angle, his eyes staring unseeingly off into space. Alex was breathing hard, staring around in a panic, waiting for the illusion to disappear. But nothing changed.

"Really, sweets, _pro-obably_ shouldn't kill me in front of the kids. It's not the best example to set." She whirled. Another Cas, he looked exactly the same as the one in the chair—same outfit, same creepy smile. He stepped toward her, and without a second thought, she raced back the way they had come, upstairs, kids clambering after her. She slammed the bedroom door behind her and locked it, panicking. Why hadn't that worked? And now she was feeling a little dizzy from blood loss. She looked at the gash in her hand—and squeezed her hand into a fist, trying to stop the bleeding. She had cut herself a little deeper than she meant to.

"A-_hem_."

Alex turned around fast. There was Cas, just looking at her with his hands on his hips, a little smile on his face, as if to say 'did you REALLY think you could lock me out?' He stood in front of the open doors to the balcony, looking pleased with himself.

"Okay, Trickster, good one. Very funny." Alex was practically giving off steam at this point, looking at the impostor glaringly. "This is _hilarious_."

He ignored her, continued the charade. "You know, I don't want to be critical, but I've noticed you can't keep it together here lately. Ever since the kids… and your weight gain… I just… you don't _try_. It's not hard to do your job—cook, clean, take care of the kids…" he bit his lip, looked up and down her body, "please me sexually..."

That was the last damn straw. Alex walked right up to him and shoved him off the edge of the balcony, over the railing where he fell a story down with a huge crash on top of a plastic playground. "I know that's you, Trickster, now _cut the bullshit_!" She shouted. He grinned up at her. "Ouch."

There was a sound behind her, like fabric flapping in the wind, and Alex turned around then almost fell over—standing a few feet in front of her—"_Cas_?" She had gone totally still, daring to hope, but not sure if it could really be him—she wasn't sure if it would be possible to duplicate all those things she recognized about him—the crooked tie, wrinkled, oversized clothes, slightly hunched way he stood, the stern, puzzled, pissy look on his face. He took in her outfit, then the room, an odd expression on his face. Still, she remained frozen, afraid it was another trick, that this wasn't really him. "Is that really you?" She asked.

"Yes, of course it's me," he replied, sounding urgent, which only further alarmed her. "I've been looking for you and your brothers for days—you've been missing."

"_What_?" He met her wide eyes and then looked off at the space behind her, his frown deepening. Alex turned to see the Trickster, still in Cas's form, standing behind her, giving her a chastising look. "Now, honey, pushing your husband out of a window is not a _very nice thing_ to do."

"Husband?" Cas repeated with narrowed eyes, and stepped forward putting himself between Alex and, well, himself... looking at the impostor with a deep frown, his physical stance intimidating. "Who are you? Why have you trapped her here?"

"Wouldn't _you _like to know?" The Trickster giggled. Cas's frown deepened further, and he paused. "Yes. That's why I asked."

There was a sigh, a roll of the eyes. "Oh, _Castiel_, you always _were_ so awkward," Trickster said, and Alex looked at him sharply—not missing the inference that he _knew_ Cas.

At this point, Cas seemed to decide he was done talking to the Trickster, and turned around, reached for Alex purposefully, said "Let's go." But even before he'd finished speaking, before he could reach her, Cas went flying backwards, yanked roughly into the thin air like a rag doll, slamming into the solid wood dresser behind him. It cracked in half at the impact, and Cas's body was immediately yanked forward again, where he flew headfirst into the opposite end of the room. Bits of plaster went flying everywhere as he collided with a wall. Alex stared in horror, unable to physically move. Stumbling to his feet, Cas stared at the Trickster, seeming to be confused, almost alarmed. He had a bloody nose. "How—?" he started, but the Trickster cut him off. "Sorry, bored! Bye bye!" He snapped his fingers, and Cas disappeared. The Trickster turned to Alex, gave her a smile. "He's just _precious_, isn't he?" Alex just stared back, terrified. How the hell was _a trickster _doing this? _How_ was he yanking around an all-powerful angel without even breaking a sweat?

"What did you _do_ to him?" Alex demanded angrily, grabbing the trickster by two fistfuls of shirt. He looked at her hands, clearly amused. "Aww, are you _worried_ about him? How _sweet_." Suddenly, he morphed into the familiar face of the Trickster—he was a small guy with big brown eyes, an expressive face—and she hated him.

Alex leveled him with a death glare, let go, backed up. "There you are." He spread his arms wide, looking pleased with himself. "Here I am!"

Alex could barely contain her rage at this stupid, weird game he was playing. "What the hell is going on here? What did you just do to Cas? And_ what _have you done with my brothers?"

"Ah,_ relax_," he said, waving a hand in dismissal. "Castiel will be fine." He made a face. "Maybe." He grinned, his eyes bright. "And your loser brothers? They're stuck in TV land." He almost giggled at her confused expression. "While I wait for them to do what I want, I figured, hey, why not a little side entertainment, huh?" He paused, pretending to think of something, pretending to be very thoughtful. "Plus, I _kinda _let them know I had you here to convince them to hurry up the decision."

"What _decision_?"

His humor, his lightness, was suddenly gone, replaced by chilling resolve. "I want them to stop messing around and say _yes_."

Alex felt chilled. Surely he didn't mean… "_Say yes_?" She repeated.

Annoyance came over his features and he rolled his eyes. "Duh, _Alex_, get with the program! To Michael, to Lucifer. I want your brothers need to quit dragging their feet and play their damn roles already." He made an annoyed, bored face. "It's getting real old."

Alex shook her head, looking at him coldly. "Look, I don't know what weird angle you're trying to play, but they won't do it."

He laughed with great enthusiasm, his eyes crinkling up and sparkling. He shook his head as the laugh faded. "Not even _you_ believe that, babe."

Alex glared, tried to think of something to say. But he was right. And it pissed her off that he had called that bluff. "Why do you care about it? Don't you realize the whole friggin' world will burn if Michael and Lucifer have their little class reunion?"

"Yeah, I know all of that. I just need it to happen so I can get on with my life," Trickster said, further mystifying Alex. "And _you_ need it to happen, too, Al." His use of Dean's nickname for her made her skin crawl. "You know why? Because you're tired of the whole damn thing. You know just as much as I do." He shrugged, trying to be cute. "One of them has to die. It's that simple."

"_Neither_ of them has to die," Alex growled.

He just smiled softly, crookedly. "Keep telling yourself that. You can't change it. Can't do a damn thing." He raised his eyebrows, looking almost sympathetic. "Is it getting to you? Do you realize?" He was mocking her now. "You don't matter. Sucks, doesn't it? Sam and Dean, they're the ones God and the Devil have grand purposes for. They're Cain and Abel all over again, Thor and Loki. And _you_? No one cares." He shrugged, feigning concern. "You're just the pretty one. Except…" he gave her a patronizing, wincing smile, "you're really not _that _pretty."

She just looked away, squeezing her fist, feeling the blood wet in her palm. "Screw you."

He tilted his head to the side, looked at her almost fondly, but the expression was tempered by an underlying amusement at her pain. "You know, I can see why he likes you. Castiel. You've got this vulnerable, not vulnerable, jaded-by-the-world but innocent-little-flower vibe going. It's cute, it's really_ adorable_."

She just glared at him from the corner of her eye, and he stepped a little closer, pleased with himself. "It's funny, Al. You and I are a lot more alike than you think."

Alex didn't bother hiding her disgust at what he'd just said. "I am _nothing_ like you."

He feigned surprised. "What—you don't feel tired of your family bossing you around? Trying to control who you are and fighting over you? Telling you who you're supposed to be? See, I have brothers, too." His expression darkened a little with a sudden, quiet anger. "And just like you, I'm the third wheel. The black sheep. Difference is, I grew some balls and left because I knew if I stayed I'd forever be the monkey in the middle. Well." He spread his arms wide, grinned. "Baby, look how far I've come! Free to be me!"

Alex rolled her eyes, seriously aggravated with his grand sweeping statements and implications.

"Gosh, would ya look at the time." He put his hands on his hips, acting overly cheery. "I could stand here all day and chat, but... I have other stuff to do." He wiggled his eyebrows meaningfully. "So, here's the deal. While those two loser brothers of yours play my game, you're gonna _survive_." He wiggled his eyebrows again, but his smile was almost ominous now. "Prove yourself to yourself, huh? Admit it. You've been waiting for a chance to do things completely on your own, but you're afraid of doing it without your precious Dean and sweet Sam in your back pocket. So, I took care of that for you!" He grinned at her, like he had done her a big favor. "I decided to open the show with a little bit of comedy. Gotta hand it to me, right? It was funny. You, married, with kids. Like _that'd_ ever happen." He smiled as Alex just glowered. "I picked the angel because I've seen inside your mind… saw that little crush of yours. So, _so_ sweet." He looked around the room. "You two have a _lovely _home here."

Alex lost what little patience she'd had. "Shut up already! _God_! You really like the sound of your own voice, don't you?"

His eyebrows knit together in an overly earnest expression. "In a little while, you'll be _wishing_ I was still here yakking your ear off." There was an ominous quality there that made Alex stop short. Then, he grinned ear to ear, his perky tone back. "So. Survive. I'll be watching! And, hey... I might even make a few guest appearances." He winked.

"What—" Alex asked, then suddenly fell over, onto the cold ground. Wait, cold hard ground—where had the carpet gone? Disoriented, she looked around. She was in a dark building—a warehouse? An old factory? She pushed herself up off the dusty floor, looking around, feeling sick and woozy, possibly because of her palm, which was still bleeding. Shit, she really needed to stop the blood loss. She realized she was now wearing fatigue type pants, a tank top, and combat boots—was she back in the real world? She checked her back belt loop for her knife, but nothing was there.

She heard a soft sound somewhere nearby—a footstep? She froze, remembering what Trickster had said. Survive. _Shit. _She saw that there was a door just to her left labeled _control room_. She slipped into it, shut the door quietly, turned around—and started. She wasn't even in the warehouse anymore—she was in a dim, dingy old motel room. She could even smell the musty, cigarette-smoke smell. And there, sitting on top of the cheap air conditioning vent that ran the length of the window, a little girl sat. _Oh my God._ That was _her_. Maybe seven years old? A couple of Barbie dolls sat nearby, untouched and forgotten. Little Alex just stared out the window silently, her feet, in beat up sneakers, tucked under her. Her dark brown hair was an unbrushed mess, and she sat as still as a photograph. Her expression was so haunted, so sad. Alex watched herself, frozen, remembering how she felt that day. Alone and secluded. Kind of like every other day. Outside, Dean and Sam were playing catch without her, and she remembered that all she wanted to do was go out there and play, too. She tried to walk forward toward herself, but suddenly felt her feet stuck, and looked down. _Mud?_

She realized that she couldn't move and was sinking down. She struggled, and tried to get free, but to no avail. She looked up, panicking, and saw nothing but marshy swamp and tangles of reeds in all directions. Oh God, she remembered this night. They had been in the swamps hunting a vengeful spirit and she'd gotten separated from her brothers, taken a wrong step, gotten stuck. The whistle around her neck, she needed to blow it. She fumbled for it, clutching with trembling hands, and tried to blow, but she couldn't blow, couldn't breathe right. _Help_, she wanted to shout, but she couldn't. She blew again, and a weak little sighing whistle sounded. Fear clenched her heart in a fist. She felt herself collapsing backwards, the world spiraling around her, and she couldn't grasp onto anything solid.

Alex fell sideways, the ground giving way into nothing, and then suddenly she was sprawled on short, clipped grass. She tried to stand, managing clumsily. She was in a wide open park. She saw Sam just a few feet away, maybe twelve years old. He was with a bunch of kids around their age, Dean had gone off somewhere with his girlfriend of the week, probably making out behind a tree or something— Alex vaguely remembered this day. She had wanted to play football with the other kids, but they hadn't let her, if she were remembering right.

She watched young Sam, laughing and tossing the football back to another kid. "So, touch football, two taps for tackle," one of the boys said, and then nudged Sam, pointed at Alex, who was kind of lurking at the edge of the park near the swings, out of earshot. "Hey, isn't that your sister?"

"Yeah," Sam said, not sounding very keen. "Go get her, she can play too," the boy said.

Sam seemed reluctant, then surprised Alex with what he said next. "Nah. She's got problems. She can't play."

"Why not?"

"She just can't, okay? Super disabled, asthma, bad leg." Sam said, lie after lie pouring out to Alex's complete shock. "Be right back," Sam told the other kid.

Sam jogged over to Alex's younger self, and when he got to her, he shrugged. "They said they don't want you to play." Alex's mouth fell open at the complete and total lie—Little Alex tried to hide her disappointment, but didn't do such a good job. And then Sam had the nerve to _pretend to comfort her_, put a hand on her shoulder, as if he felt bad for her. She had her notepad out, and scribbled: **You go play. I can watch.**

"You sure?" Sam asked. And his face looked so concerned. Little Alex just nodded, putting on a brave, "I'm okay" face. But Alex remembered how she'd felt. Heartbroken. Left out—as usual. Sam left and jogged back to the kids who were waiting for him. Alex watched this scene with totally new eyes. Anger—so much anger. Why? _Why would Sam do that? _What the fuck _was_ that? How many other times had he lied to her like that? Her whole childhood she thought Sam had been on her side. That he'd protected her from cruel kids and tough moments and bullies. But after seeing that, she had this horrifying suspicion that he been part of the reason she'd thought all of that. Had he manipulated other situations, too? _Why_? She felt like her heart was breaking in half, and all the trust and love she had left for Sam threatened to shatter completely. On cue, the park seemed to melt away, and she was spinning around, unable to see anything, only feel the sensation of rushing headlong through nothing.

"Come on, can't we just leave her for_ once_? I can help on this hunt, Dad, you know I can—you need me on this one." Alex looked around, confused, recognizing Dean's voice. She was outside a motel room, in the soft haze of twilight, watching a scene she didn't recognize. Dad and Dean were talking there, standing in a mostly empty parking lot. "Having her along will just slow us down, you know it will," Dean was protesting, and Alex felt a cruel sense of betrayal slap her at what he'd just said—was he talking about _her_? "So why can't we just leave her here? She'll be _fine_."

Dad looked at Dean angrily. A look he had given his children so many times, when they challenged his authority or said the wrong thing in the wrong moment. "Just do what I say, Dean," he said, his expression and tone domineering. "Stay here with your sister. Just watch your damn sister. I'll be back."

As if on cue, a few-years-younger Alex poked her head out of a motel room door, her expression curious as she looked at her dad and brother. And then, with horror, Alex realized she _did_ know what day this was. This was right before Dad had disappeared. A few weeks later, she and Dean would go find Sam and life would fall apart all over again. Alex stared at Dean, who was looking at the other Alex with what she thought was reluctance, even a touch of resentment. Somehow, that hurt worse than anything had hurt her in a long time. She felt tears gathering in her eyes. Tears of pain. She shut her eyes, tried to remove herself from the memory, then heard the sound of screams, shouting. Her eyes popped open, and she was no longer in a parking lot with Dean and Dad.

She was now in an alley way, behind a building. She heard someone shouting an exorcism chant. She didn't remember this—she followed the voice and found Dean, maybe eleven or twelve, holding a young Sam against the wall of the building. Sam looked terrified, and he was covered in _blood_—his hands, his shirt. Alex was confused—then she looked down. There were these strange furry, bloody shapes littering the ground at their feet. Alex froze, shocked. What was this? What was happening?

"_You're not possessed_?" Dean asked Sam, sounding beyond horrified, beyond stunned. Sam was sobbing. "I d-don't know why I did it, Dean!"

Alex stumbled backwards, almost unable to breathe—no, that couldn't be real. That couldn't have happened! Suddenly, everything went dark, and she bumped into something, maybe a table. The lights came on and she squinted, shielding her eyes with a hand. "You can't be serious, John," she heard Bobby say, and she blinked a few times, her eyes adjusting. She was in Bobby's study, and Dad and Bobby were standing in there, alone, facing each other, as if they were in the middle of an intense conversation. She frowned. This wasn't a memory of hers. Bobby and Dad looked a lot younger than she'd ever remembered seeing them look.

Dad looked upset. "Bobby, come on. Try to understand. This isn't the life for her."

Bobby didn't look upset—he looked downright pissed. "John, if it's that important for you to protect her _from_ the life, then _quit_ the life." Dad made a face she had seen him make a lot of times. Unwillingness mixed with hesitation. "You know I can't do that."

"Can't, or _won't_?" Bobby asked, and he didn't sound like this very often—Alex could tell he was very, very angry. "John… I can't believe you're even _considering_ this."

"It would keep her safe, Bobby, and you know it," Dad protested, but Bobby flew off the handle. "She's your _daughter_, ya damn fool!" Bobby shouted. "_You_ keep her safe! _You_!" The men looked at each other angrily, shaken. Bobby looked like he was trying to calm down, but was still glaring at the other man. "You're trying to duck outta your responsibility."

Dad threw his hands up. "She makes everything harder, Bobby!"

"That's what kids do!" Bobby shouted again, and got in John's face. Alex didn't understand. What was happening? "You really just want to _give her up_? Abandon her, sign her into foster care and then be done with her? She's not a _pet _for cryin' out loud. She's your six-year-old _daughter_. She _needs_ her _family_. Maybe more than other kids do!"

And suddenly as it had started, the memory faded out completely. Alex was suddenly back in the warehouse, breathless, tears in her eyes. Her pulse was pounding from dizzy adrenaline and fear and grief. Suddenly, all made perfect, heartbreaking sense. The way Dad kind of passed her off to Dean. The way he always had this hesitation when he looked at her. Like he was disappointed in her, or disappointed in himself. Or just disappointed, period. The way he hadn't really given her any credit until her later teenage years. She had tried so hard to just get his attention, but she had always felt forgotten and overlooked. She remembered him telling her he loved her maybe twice her whole life. But maybe that had been a lie like everything else. He hadn't wanted her. _He hadn't wanted her._ The pain of the rejection was almost physical at this point, and she leaned against the wall, almost feeling like she might be sick. More than anything she just wanted to break down. The pain was literally almost unbearable, her chest hurt.

Sam, ripping apart little baby cats, Dean telling Dad she was only slowing them down, Sam lying and manipulating her emotions and _for what_?! Was everything she ever thought and believed in a total lie? She sobbed, unable to hold the sound back. And beside her, the doorknob turned.

Alex jumped back, panicking, mad at herself for not finding a weapon, remembering everything she had temporarily forgotten in the wake of emotional distress. She had maybe one second to try and clear herself mentally, remind herself that she had to survive. She stood back tensely, behind the door. A dark head poked in, and she brutally shoved the person head first into the wall, a desperate and stupid move. The owner of the dark head of hair seemed to have expected that, and grabbed her even as she pushed him. He whirled her strongly, shoved her against the wall.

Alex's entire body went limp, she couldn't breathe. Horror and shock came over her features. "D-Dad?!" She gasped out, looking into the face of her father.

"Hi, baby." The sound of his voice—which she hadn't heard in years—sent a chill down her spine. _It's not really him, it's not really him._ But it looked just like him, the white hairs in his beard, the dark eyes, the tired wrinkles around his eyes, the crooked smile so much like Dean's. But his expression was chilling, filled with malice. He was roughly pushing her against the wall. His elbow bone was digging into her shoulder painfully and she was grimacing, trying to wiggle free. "You been a good girl for Dean?" He asked casually.

Alex was literally shaking, no physical strength left in her body, fidgeting in a panicked, uncoordinated mess. He chuckled, smiling at her fondly. "You thought you got rid of Dad a long time ago, huh?" She looked at him in a mixture of confusion and pain, and he just smiled more. "Oh yes. _I know_. I know you were relieved when Daddy dearest died."

She tried shaking her head, choking back tears. Wanting to believe that it wasn't true. "No, no I wasn't," she protested shakily. "Aw, that's my girl. Living in denial." He smiled, as if proud. He touched the side of her face with the backs of his fingers, and she winced against the seemingly tender touch, tried to pull away.

"Get away from me," Alex protested weakly, and blinked a few times. Her vision was beginning to get foggy. "You _hurt, _baby?" he asked, his expression filled with concern. He grabbed her hand, looked at the cut… then ground his thumb into the wound. She screamed, as he got in her face, suddenly terrifyingly angry. "Pain is part of _life_, Alexandra, now stop being _so damn weak_! You have been _nothing_ but one let down after another to this family, _nothing_, you hear me?"

Alex thrashed, trying to get away from his grip and from his words, and he just laughed, let go of her hand, looked at her for a minute, as if trying to figure something out. "So, I guess the question I have for you is… can you find it inside yourself to kill me?"

"Kill you?" Alex repeated, going still in terror.

He chuckled a little. "It's a dog eat dog world, baby," he said, sighing as if tired. "Kill or be killed." His hands were both gently coming against her throat, and then suddenly pressing against her with brutal crushing force. He smiled pleasantly as he choked her.

Alex struggled intensely against the vice-like grip on her throat, but couldn't get her legs to work, as they weren't even touching the ground anymore. Desperate and sloppy, she drew her palm back and smashed it full-force up and against Dad's nose, stunning him—and he stumbled back, she fell down breathing in panicked little gasps. She scrambled to her feet, ran the opposite direction, out the door and down a flickering hallway littered with old wires and trash.

She could hear him following, and she was consumed in all-out terror. She knew, even as she rounded a corner and came into a wide, open, echoing room, that she needed to keep her head, or she wouldn't survive this. She went slack against the wall, struggling to breathe. Beside her foot, a rusty old shovel sat. The second she saw it, she grabbed it up and began wielding it like a staff, wincing against the roughness of it in her cut-up palm. She could hear heavy, running booted footsteps coming closer. She swung madly as he rounded the corner, hitting him in the face with the shovel with enough force to send him flying backwards. He must have had his hunting knife out, because it went skittering across the floor, and Alex dove for it without thinking. Even as her fingers closed around the hilt, she felt herself knocked sideways, and Dad was over her, pinning her down by the wrists. But she'd held on tight to the knife, refusing to let go.

"Now, Alexandra, put the knife down," he coaxed, grinning maniacally. "You wouldn't want to hurt your dad."

"You are _not _my dad," Alex spat, and with a surge of adrenaline, she brutally drove her knee up into his stomach, and violently yanked her wrists forward and down, breaking his grip long enough, just long enough, to push him over, to kind of pull back, sideways. Even as he was rolling off of her, she was drawing back, without hesitation, still halfway on the ground. She plunged the knife into his chest with a scream. His face showed shock, horror, pain, and Alex just kind of pulled back, stunned, taking the knife with her. She was half sitting, agonized, shaking, watching him fall to the ground, dead. Oh God, oh God, she couldn't breathe—she knew that wasn't Dad, but it looked like him, it sounded like him, and she wanted to vomit everywhere. She looked at the knife in her hand, covered in bright red blood. She almost dropped it in horror—but then she heard "Oh, _A-lex_…" in a soft, sing song voice.

She looked behind her, recognizing the voice with dread. Sam. He stood there, completely still as she managed to stand up shakily. He had a soft, chilling smile on his face—it reminded her of Lucifer, and she stumbled back a little, barely able to stand up anymore. Something snapped in her—instinct took over. She knew if she didn't take her chance and attack now, she'd probably die.

Sam opened his mouth to say something, but before he had even drawn a breath, she flipped Dad's knife deftly in her hand, focused, twirling it so that instead of hilt she grasped the blade. She drew back and threw it with a pained grimace and the last of her strength. It sank with a horrible squelching sound into his chest. He looked at the knife, then at her, shocked. Then fell forward onto the ground. She looked at his still body in alarm—she couldn't believe herself. _That's not really Sam. You didn't just kill Sam. _But that look on his face when he'd looked at her, the knife in his chest—

Alex suddenly jumped back as shotgun blasts kicked cement up just a few inches in front of her feet. Dean was in front of her smiling, slinging a shotgun over his shoulder casually, grinning at her as he loped forward out of the shadows. "Hiya, sis! Now what did you do that for?"

_No, not Dean. Not Dean now._ He looked at Sam, perplexed, then kicked his brother's lifeless body over and yanked the knife out of Sam's chest. He looked at her, gave her a 'someone's been a bad girl' look. He dropped the shotgun, and knife in hand, sauntered over.

Alex backed up, hit the wall behind her, momentarily unable to do anything—this was Dean—_no, it wasn't! _She had waited too long to run away, and he was suddenly right there, and her chance at escape was gone. He pinned her against the wall, smirked, brought the knife up to trace a soft line against the skin of her neck. She could feel the blood on the knife from Sam leaving a wet line on her skin. She stared, horrified and frozen, watching Dean, trying to find it within herself to fight him off. She _couldn't_. She had nothing left in her. He smiled at her sweetly. "Hmm. Just like I thought. Dean's your Achilles heel, isn't he? It's kind of sweet how much you love this dumb jock."

His chin lowered, his eyes stared at her with malice, and the knife went lower, then he held the point there against her chest, twisted a little, and she sobbed as it broke the skin. _Maybe she deserved this_. All she knew was she was too weak, there was nothing left. She just looked away, defeated, crying softly, ashamed and in pain. The knife dug a little deeper and she cried out again, like a child, like a coward. And then, behind Dean, Cas appeared—a furious expression on his face like Alex had never seen—Alex started, mouth falling open as he grabbed Dean by the shoulder with crushingly ruthless force, ripping him off of her, almost enraged. Dean attempted to stab Cas, but the angel grabbed Dean's wrist and bent it down, his grip unyielding, his eyes blazing. With absolute and ferocious power Castiel hit Dean across the face, and Dean went flying across the warehouse and went still.

Alex had fallen down, and was slumped against the wall, dazed, watching Cas in a mixture of disbelief, admiration, breathlessness. He looked back at her, more alarmed than Alex ever remembered him being. He was already walking back toward her, an urgent pace to his step. "I don't know how he's doing this," he said, talking very fast. "I tried getting your brothers, but—" suddenly he fizzled out again, disappearing completely, just as he had been about to get her. Alex's temporary relief was gone, replaced with despair and anger—she wanted to scream. Suddenly, the Trickster stood in front of her, smirking.

"_Damn_! I knew this would be entertaining, but really? Killing your own Dad? And Sam? I am _impressed_, Alex!"

"You son of a bitch," she muttered, trying to summon some fire, but only sounding broken. "Why are you doing this to me?"

He snapped his fingers and she was yanked to her feet, at if held by invisible hands. He looked angry. "Because you _need to grow up_, Alex! Stop depending on your _stupid, selfish brothers_ who are only going to let you down and tear your family apart! Face it, your family is a sham and you have been falling victim to their lies your whole life!"

"How is any of that your damn business?" Alex asked acidly, summoning what strength she had left to glare at him even through her pain and weakness. She hated him for everything he had shown her. Everything he'd put her through.

He seemed momentarily incredulous. "Did you even_ see _what I showed you? All real. One hundred percent. They didn't _love_ you. They don't _care _about you! You should be thanking me. They act like you belong to them, like they own you. You let your brothers boss you around, control you, tell you who you are. It's sad, Alex! You're _sad_."

Alex tilted her head to the side, breathing a little labored, suddenly wondering something, suddenly suspicious. "Is this even about me? I'm starting to think not."

He rolled his eyes, as if he had been waiting for her to say that. "You got me," he said, and sighed dramatically as if he were relieved. "I guess you could say I'm pretty much the Alex of my family. No one thought I'd ever measure up or be anything." He smiled, an oddly cold, ominous quality to the expression. "So, hell, I decided I didn't need 'em. Let them tear each other apart, I don't _CARE_." He huffed, chuckled. "Look how many fucks I give." He paused, then furious anger overcame his voice and face. "Zero! _ZERO_! I give_ zero fucks_!" He looked at her, glaring. "And neither should you—you sorry, _stupid_ child."

Alex looked at him oddly, not sure what to say. None of the things he was saying were really affecting her, only baffling her. She shook her head, almost feeling sorry for _him_. Even after all the crap she'd just been through.

"You said we were alike, earlier… and you couldn't be more wrong. Because I'm not jumping ship the second things start to go bad, and I'm not walking away, even if everything you showed me was real. If they go down, I'm going down with them. I don't care if we're the biggest walking disaster on earth. We're still family." Maybe she said all that to try and get under his skin, or maybe she meant it. At this point, she wasn't even sure.

Trickster rolled his eyes, groaned loudly. "Oh _please_, you're _pathetic_, Alex! Even after everything I just showed you? _Really_? Damn. I don't know if you're incredibly loyal or just stupid as a rock."

"Put me down as stupid as a rock," Alex said, laughing slowly, darkly. She felt so physically weak, but still managed to raise her hand, point at him knowingly. "You know what I figured out, Trickster? You're not a trickster. There's just no way. Not the way you slammed around my angel like it was no big deal, the way you refuse to die when killed. You're something else. I got no clue what, but I'm gonna find out what. My family, and all those innocent people you've killed? I'm gonna make sure you rot in hell for all the jacked up shit you've done to us."

He tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowed, either amused or indignant, she couldn't tell which. "You really think you're in a position to be threatening me?"

Alex just stared at him cooly. "Oh look, I made him mad. Poor baby."

That comment wiped his expression off his face, and he matched her stare for a moment, then raised his chin, a slight smile returning to his face. "Well. I've figured it out, Alex." She frowned. "Figured what out."

His smile got a little bigger. "Your worst nightmare, of course." He was wagging a finger now, pacing the floor in front of her. "It's not fighting, it's not killing, it's not a normal life, it's not your past…" he paused, looked at her, that soft little smile on his face. "It's your _future_."

He snapped his fingers, and the dark warehouse was replaced by something else entirely. Under a flat gray sky, she and the Trickster stood in a circle of overgrown grass. Weathered gray stone headstones fanned out in all directions—stretching out in all directions as far as Alex could see on all sides. She looked at the Trickster, who was smiling softly. "Your worst fear. It's being completely, and totally alone."

He gave her a knowing smile, pleased with himself. "Oh, I'm _good_. Now." He gave her a faux-stern frown. "You sit here and think about what you've done. Oh, and _try_ not to bleed to death." He rolled his eyes and disappeared. Alex looked at the gravestones that surrounded her with increasing alarm, turning in a slow circle, reading the engraved names with panic.

_John Winchester. Mary Winchester. Dean Winchester. Sam Winchester. Bobby Singer. _The gravestones stretched miles in all directions, all littered with names of people she had known or failed to save. Anywhere she looked, she saw a name she recognized.

And then, she saw it, behind her family's gravestones. An obviously shallow grave, marked only with a simple wooden cross. On it hung a silver chain, with her dad's wedding band and her old silver whistle. And she knew, immediately, who it belonged to. _Cas, dead and gone in 2014._ Forgotten, anonymous. No name on the cross, just something of hers that he had obviously clung to in those last months of his life. She stumbled backward, overcome with horror, panic, grief at everything that was building up inside of her, everything the Trickster had shown her and subjected her to, coupled with everything she'd been fighting the past month—it was_ too much_! She was tired, exhausted, spent, and overwhelmed with grief and pain and a sadness that felt like it was gnawing on her inside. She fell onto all fours, sobbing, everything she'd been holding in and denying pouring out of her. She wasn't sure how long she stayed like that. She wept so violently that she began to cough. Her nose ran. She began to shudder, hyperventilate.

She stood unevenly after a few minutes, trying to compose herself, wiping her wet cheeks, so ashamed.

And then behind her, just over her shoulder… the sound of angel's wings. She stilled, face going blank. All he said was her name. "Alex." Her heart seemed to spasm in her chest, out of relief and dread all at the same time.

She turned halfway, hesitant, not wanting him to see her like this. Just telling herself to hold it together. But the sight of him—and it really was him, she recognized the wrinkled shirt, the crooked tie, the worried, perplexed frown on his face—caused all the temporary calm she had gotten back to dissolve again. She didn't even think about it, she just sobbed his name and crashed into him, clinging to him and crying again, humiliated but unable to do anything but hug him. Her arms were inside his trench coat, the top of her head pressed against his shoulder as she looked down and wept without holding anything back. She couldn't bear for him to disappear again, and just clung onto him.

For a couple seconds, Cas remained sort of frozen, not sure what was happening. Alex was just crushing him (not literally, of course, that would be impossible) with her arms. She was shaking with tears, sobbing sounds wracking her entire body. He did not like this sound, or this sensation. In fact, he hated it.

He looked down at her, the way she had circled her arms around him. He had seen humans do this before, and knew it was a hug, and that he should return the gesture. He carefully brought his arms around her, gently, then a little tighter, matching it to the way she was holding onto him—pausing, wondering if he were doing it right. He noticed how he could hear and feel her breathing like this. Even through the layers of clothing, there was a steady little beat against his chest, her heart beating. He noticed the way her hands felt there against his back, the fingers taut, digging in a little bit. The longer they stayed like that, the calmer she became, and Cas felt himself relaxing a little as she became quieter, less panicked. The top of her head was right there, in front of his face. He could faintly smell shampoo, some kind of soap. She shivered in his arms, sniffed. There, in the circle of his arms, she felt so small, smaller than she looked.

Her head was shifting onto his shoulder now, and the tip of her nose brushed against his neck. He could feel her uneven breathing hitting the skin of his neck. A sensation that once he felt, he couldn't stop focusing on. His vessel sort of flushed with warmth, and a surge of protective instinct overcame him. His arms tightened around her.

Somewhere in the back of his thoughts, he was trying to remember who he was—an angel of the Lord, holding a human girl in his arms. But he didn't let go, even though he knew he should. He couldn't let go, because he had watched Alex for more than a year, had seen her sorrows, seen her crying, had watched the sadness she hid from others. She almost always cried alone, when she knew no one else could see. The sight of her crying had always unsettled him in the past, had bothered him. But never had it affected him like this, today. He felt angry that she had been made to feel this way, and angry because he didn't know how to fix it. And helpless, because he wasn't sure if it _could_ be fixed. She was so much more torn apart than he had ever seen her.

Alex, quieted and somewhat more composed, pulled back a little bit, slowly, hesitant to look at him, her expression ashamed and so very grieved. He hadn't even noticed how it happened, but now both of his hands gripped her right above the elbows, and hers mirrored his, resting lighting in the crooks of his elbows.

Her face was streaked with tears, completely covered. He felt more of the intense helplessness he had been experiencing for the past few days, trapped in the Trickster's world, but_ this _sight, very much made him feel the most helpless. It was as if her sadness seeped out of her, and into him.

With the pad of his thumb, Cas wiped her right cheek, his touch whisper-soft and hesitant. She seemed to stop breathing for a second, looking at him in what looked like fear. He stilled—had he done something wrong? Then her head tilted just to the side, a little bit, almost as if she were leaning her face into his hand. He withdrew his hand, not understanding, and she looked up at him, her eyes so dark and big, filled with an emotion he didn't recognize.

His eyes traveled her entire face, the face he knew so well now. His eyes stopped, resting a beat on her soft, parted lips. And for a moment, he imagined himself leaning down and touching his lips to hers, and wondered how the touch of her skin against his would feel. The thought shocked him. He realized the pulse in his body had picked up, his breathing was shorter, his nervous system felt jittery. Panicking slightly, he let go of her.

She looked down, seeming disappointed, or conflicted, like she were gathering herself mentally. Her eyelashes were darker than usual, wet with tears. She looked back at him pleadingly. "Cas, _please _say you can get us out of here. _Please._"

An odd lurch in his vessel's stomach. "No. I don't know the way out. This trickster is very powerful." He looked down, then noticed the palm of her hand—bloody and raw. More than just a little scrape. "You're bleeding," he said, stunned that he hadn't noticed sooner.

He looked down at himself, looking for something, then pulled some of his shirt out of the waistband of his pants, and ripped the fabric. He held her bleeding hand in his larger one, wrapped the strip of white fabric there with his other hand. She winced a little as the cotton touched the open cut skin there, but looked at him uncertainly, watched him as he concentrated. He met her eyes, just for a second, then looked back down, tying a clumsy knot. He looked pained, and Alex remembered, offhandedly, when he had told her to count her scars. He was still looking at her hand, still holding it in both of his hands. And then, she almost thought she had imagined it, he brushed the exposed skin where her fingers met her hand. A completely unnecessary action. She looked at him, unsure. He was now staring at the spot where Dean had dug the knife into, just above where her heart was. His fingers brushed against it, his eyebrows knit together further. He breathed out, dropped his hand away, looked at the graves and let go of her hand. He looked like he were in deep, serious thought. After a moment, he looked back at her, grim.

"I saw the things he showed you. He tried to keep me out completely, but he couldn't stop me from watching. I saw everything. What Sam did. What your father did. Everything."

Alex looked away, ashamed, hugging her arms around herself even though it wasn't cold. She sniffed a little, looking down, feeling like a lost little girl. She was feeling sick again, weak, but she refused to sit down or admit how near to passing out she was. She looked at him, not even sure why, but suddenly spilling everything in a self-loathing monologue, sorry for herself. Just like Dean said. She just needed to say it all, to try and get rid of all the crap she was trying to deny. "All my life I've been trying to survive. And I _have_ survived. But why? So I get to see _this_? Everyone I ever loved or cared about, dead?" She felt manic suddenly, enraged. "Why did the Trickster _do_ this to me? I don't understand. I mean yeah me and Dean and Sam tried to kill him a couple years ago after he jacked us up, big friggin' deal. So this is his idea of revenge?" She looked around, suddenly breathless and pained. "Well. Bravo. I would have preferred he just _kill_ me and gotten it over with instead of dragging me through this crap."

"No," Cas said intensely, but she was continuing, not really seeing him, not listening. "And _now_ I find out Dad didn't even want me, that I was nothing to him?" She swallowed painfully. "And maybe I already suspected that." She shook her head slowly, sad because that was true, and it hurt to admit out loud. "But Dean—thinking I was a burden. Sam, lying to me, manipulating me, making me think he was looking out for me—ripping up little kittens in an alley for kicks…" she was getting pissed again, and dizzy too. "I lived my life blind, not just _mute_. How did I not know all these things? They were staring me in the face and _I didn't see_."

She kind of staggered sideways, and would have fallen down, but Cas reached out, grabbed her, a somewhat forceful, emphatic expression on his face. "_Stop_. This is _exactly_ what the Trickster intended."

She looked at him, really looked at him, for a moment normal, not crazed or manic. "You are gonna die in 2014, Cas, a horrible, stupid death. And what's worse…" her eyebrows were slamming together, "I think you _wanted_ to die. You wanted it." She paused, went quiet. Cas frowned, opened his mouth. "I don't—"

Alex laughed, an airy sound, turning loopy once again. "My God, I'm convinced now, Cas. Zachariah is right. Everything I saw in 2014 will happen," she laughed hollowly, went limp, almost falling down, but Cas held her up. She looked at him in fear, sort of falling apart, unable to stop herself from giving all of her fears a voice. "Sam will say yes, because he's dark inside, he'll _say yes_, and the world will burn, and Dean will try and stop it and _he can't_, and I can't do anything about it, can I, my brothers are tearing the world apart, and God, what am _I_ supposed to do, or_ can_ I do anything, ha, I can't, cuz I'm _nothing_—"

"Alex—" Cas tried to cut her off sternly, but she was just laughing at herself, a drunken kind of sound. "It's _so funny_. Me thinking my life mattered, and you saying God had some purpose for me, it's a joke Cas, all lies—"

"Alex, stop!—_look at me_!" He almost shook her, his face furious, confused, alarmed at the way she was behaving. "Look at me!"

She did, she did looked at him, suddenly vulnerable and clear eyed, her breakdown cut short. He didn't seem to know what to say, and she looked at him desperately, like she was waiting for him to relieve her fears, to tell her everything was going to be okay.

And suddenly, they were not there anymore.

* * *

Dean and Sam stood with the "Trickster" in front of them—encased in a ring of burning holy oil; because they had realized after he dragged them through an odd TV reality, slung Cas around like a rag doll, refused to die, that he was something else entirely—an angel, and probably a pretty powerful one. Their hunch paid off. In the just-lit circle of fire, the Trickster clapped slowly, his bluff called. "Well played, boys. Well played. Where'd I screw up? How'd you know?"

Sam answered. "Nobody gets the jump on Cas like you did. Only another angel could slam him around like that."

Dean leveled the Trickster with a superior little smirk. "Mostly it was the way you talked about Armageddon."

"Meaning?" Trickster asked, not following.

Dean shrugged. "Well, call it personal experience, but nobody gets that angry unless they're talking about their own family."

Trickster seemed mildly irritated by that statement. "So which one are you?" Sam asked. "Grumpy, Sneezy, or _Douchey_?"

Rolling his eyes at the terrible joke, the Trickster sighed. "Gabriel, okay? They call me Gabriel." Sam's forehead wrinkled. "Gabriel? The archangel?"

"Guilty."

Dean sauntered forward a couple of steps. "Okay, Gabriel. First things first. You are gonna bring Cas and Alex back here from whatever hell you stashed them in."

"Oh am I?" Gabriel asked, smiling cooly.

"_Yeah_. You are," Dean said calmly. "Or we're going to dunk you in some holy oil and deep-fry ourselves an archangel." Gabriel's smile faded. He waited a couple seconds, and then, clearly pissed, he raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

Dean looked behind himself to see a slumped, bleeding, half-conscious Alex being held up by Cas, who was breathing heavily, blood running down his nose and the side of his face. His hands on Alex's arms seemed to be the only thing holding her up. "Alex! What happened?" Sam asked, rushing to them as Dean rounded on Gabriel. Angry was putting Dean's disposition lightly. "Gabriel, what the hell did you do to her?"

The Archangel just smiled, shrugged innocently. Cas was glaring daggers at Gabriel. "He put her through a series of hells for his own personal amusement."

Dean's expression was murderous as Gabriel smiled nonchalantly. "What can I say, she delivered—I _laughed_, I _cried_, I learned new things about myself."

"You _son of a bitch_!" Dean shouted.

"I should have known this was you, Gabriel," Cas said with no shortage of gravelly disgust, and Gabriel held up his hands in defense, acting like he didn't know what the issue was. "Hey, before you deep fry me, consider this. I didn't really do _anything_ to her. It was all inside her already, I just… nudged a few feelings around. Brought a few things to the surface." He looked at all three of the men in turn. "You're the ones who did this to her. You."

Dean stepped closer, his expression dangerous. "Why?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Why _not_? She and I are practically the same person, and I'm tired of her blind loyalty to you. All the two of you do to her… all my family has done to me… is tear apart everything worth loving. You wondering why I became the trickster? My own private witness protection. I skipped out of heaven, had a face transplant, carved out my own little corner of the world so I didn't have to deal with the shit my family surrounded me with." He wagged his eyebrows. "Sound familiar? Remember when Alex ran away, Dean? Too bad she _crawled back_."

"Of course she came back, this is her family," Sam said, almost snarling as he took a step toward Gabriel from where he'd been standing beside Cas.

"What _family_?" Gabriel asked in humored disbelief. "Turned against each other, tearing at each other's throats? Why the hell do you think I brought you here and did this to you and am trying to get you to play your roles? Because I am tired of _my _family tearing itself to shreds." His good mood was gone. He was suddenly, intensely angry. "_I need it to be over!_"

Dean shook his head, lips in a thin line. "You are something else. You got some nerve, involving my brother and sister in your douche-nozzle family drama. You're all a bunch of assholes." He glanced over his shoulder, thinking of something. "Uh, no offense, Cas."

"None taken," Cas said darkly. He glanced at Dean, then back at Alex, who was blinking slowly, staring at the knot in Cas's tie.

Gabriel looked positively ruffled at Dean's comment about his family. "Shut your cake hole. You don't know _anything _about my family. I love my father, my brothers. Love them. But watching them betray each other, slowly kill each other? I couldn't bear it! Okay? So I left. And now it's happening all over again."

"Then help us stop it," Sam said, trying to appeal to reason.

Gabriel scoffed. "It can't be _stopped_. I don't _want_ it to be stopped."

"You wanna see the world end?" Dean asked in angered disbelief.

"Haven't you been _listening_?" Gabriel shouted. "I have to sit back and watch my own brothers kill each other thanks to you two! Heaven? Hell? I don't _care_ who wins, I just want it to be _over!" _Sam shook his head, desperate. "It doesn't have to be like that. There has to be some way to, to pull the plug."

Gabriel looked at Sam patronizingly. "You _do not _know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other—and guess what, there was nothing anyone could do about it. Not me. Not your sister."

"_What_ are you talking about?" Sam demanded, to which Gabriel's expression fell. He shook his head blankly. "You _sorry_ sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. Their younger sibling they fight over and don't even realize they're driving away or damaging in the process. That was me. That's _her._"

Dean and Sam both looked at Alex, who was apparently a little lucid again. She was staring back at them, her expression pained and tired, clutching onto Cas weakly. Gabriel wasn't done. "You were born to this, boys. It's your _destiny_! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other, and it's to the point where _I don't care_ who dies. Can't say the same for her, though." He looked at Sam, smiling a little. "Somehow, Sam... I think you already know that."

"What the hell are you saying?" Sam demanded, getting more aggravated by the second.

"Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you boys? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always. This is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. Accept it." Dean came close to the edge of the ring of fire, his glare unrelenting. The flames reflected in his dark eyes, a menacing effect. "No. I won't accept it. And you know what? We're out of here."

Dean turned and walked away, over to Cas, reaching for Alex. "I got her," Dean said tersely, giving Cas a look. Cas let go.

"Uh. Okay. Guys? You're just gonna, you're gonna leave me here forever?" Gabriel asked, stock still, stuck inside the ring.

Dean turned, and Sam took Alex from him, helped her out through the door as Dean hung back. "No. We're _not_, 'cause we don't screw with people the way you do. And for the record? This isn't about some prize fight between your brothers or some destiny that can't be stopped. This is about you being_ too afraid _to stand up to your family!" Dean pulled the fire alarm roughly, and the sprinklers and alarm went off. "Don't say I never did anything for you," Dean shouted over the noise, and Gabriel glared angrily, the water raining down over his head. Dean left and didn't look back.

Sam had Alex sitting on the trunk of the Impala, and he was checking her for injuries as she kind of swayed unevenly, stared at nothing. "Cas, what the hell happened?" Dean demanded.

Cas ignored the question—he was looking at Alex intently. "She really needs to be taken to the hospital. Her physical injuries are worse than I thought. Meet me there." He reached out and touched Alex's shoulder, even as Sam protested, "Wait—"

But the angel and their sister disappeared, and Dean swore violently, gave Sam, who shrugged as if to say '_not my fault' _a dagger glare. "Are you _kidding _me?!" Dean bitched, and slammed his hand on top of the car in frustration.

* * *

Alex stared at the shiny hospital floor, hearing the nurse ask Cas, "Okay, and are you her husband?"

He had an arm around her waist, holding her steady, his other hand was grasping her forearm. "N—" Cas began, but Alex cut him off, her speech a little slurred. "Yes." She wasn't even looking, but she guessed he was looking at her like she had three heads at that point. But she knew the hospital rules about family, and she didn't want to be alone. She would explain to him later, if she could remember… oh, look, that person was wearing crocs. _The stupidest shoe in the world... _

"All right, follow me," the nurse's voice said. "What happened to her?"

Cas's low voice rumbled through her, since she was practically attached to him at the moment. "She was dragged into an alternate dimension created by an Archangel and subsequently forced to relive painful memories and face inner turmoil."

Alex looked up, pitched forward a little. Cas's grip tightened on her. Just as Alex predicted, the nurse was frozen, looking at them oddly. "I tried to commit suicide," Alex lied, weakly flopping her bloody hand out. It was the best lie she could come up with at a moment's notice. "Uh, okay," the nurse said, looking at Cas oddly, who was looking at Alex, frowning. She just looked down again, so dizzy and sick. She heard someone say, "We'll take her from here," and immediately, she felt Cas's fingers tighten against her waist, her arm. "No, I will not leave her side."

_Oh, that's nice_, she thought dreamily, floating forward. She spaced out again, not really sure what was happening or how much time had passed or which direction was up or down. Eventually, she realized she was laying in a hospital bed, and being hooked up to things, poked, prodded. Cas stood beside the bed, watching her with a grim expression. She felt lucid again, at least for right then, as his eyes met hers. "I should have known when I couldn't get to you," he said. "That he wasn't simply a trickster."

Alex sighed a very long sigh. Her head felt like it was three feet outside of her skull. "He's called the trickster for a reason. He fools everyone." Cas didn't look reassured at her statement. In fact, he looked even more depleted. "I'll be fine, Cas," Alex said weakly, because she knew she would be. "I get knocked down a lot, yeah. But I always get back up." She paused, her face blank, her mind ghosting over the new wounds that were fresh in her mind from the scenes Gabriel had showed her from her younger years. "I always survive," she murmured, half to herself, then glanced at Cas. She remembered how she had broken down with him earlier, unleashed the floodgates on him. She suddenly felt very stupid and weak, and unable to look at him. He, however, wouldn't stop looking at her, that frown of his deepening. But instead of stern, he looked bothered. "I'm supposed to be your protector," he said. He sounded disillusioned.

She looked up at him appraisingly her vision going double for a second. "Even after you're cut off from heaven and kicked out of the angel points club?"

He looked at her, his eyebrows moving down just slightly. "Yes. Still."

Something about the way he said that made her want to jump out of her skin, made her feel like—_ouch!_ She winced as one of the nurses stuck another IV needle in her arm. A muscle jerked in Cas's jaw. She watched them hang a bag of saline solution and hook it up to the newest needle in her arm. She then glanced at Cas, suddenly worried. "You're not gonna just disappear or leave, are you?" Her gaze faltered—she had sounded way, way too desperate just then. "I just—I don't wanna be alone." But after the graveyard… he knew that, didn't he?

His eyebrows moved just a little closer together. "I will not leave your side," he said. And that small statement made her feel so much better. She almost smiled. "Thanks, Cas." She watched as he pulled up a chair beside her and sat there with his hands in his lap.

Growing somber, she remembered everything that had happened in the graveyard and looked away, into her lap. She had thought, just for a moment, when he had touched her face, wiped her tears away, his eyes meeting hers so soulfully that maybe, _maybe_ there was something there. That maybe the way he had felt about her in 2014 was already there, or someday_ would_ be there, below the surface. The way his arms had wrapped around her, then tightened… had she imagined that? She'd been so distraught that maybe she'd imagined it. Sidelong, her eyes swept over his face that was becoming so familiar. He had such a simple, open face, yet something about it stuck with her, etched itself inside her mind.

His face wasn't the only thing etched in her mind. She couldn't even begin to think about the memories she'd been shown about Dean, Sam, and Dad. She refused. _Not now._ It was too much and she_ just couldn't_. Instead, she focused on her hospital wristband. And without even wanting to, thought of kissing Cas again. The heart rate monitor suddenly sped up a few beats, and Cas looked at it, frowning in concern, then looking at her. Alex kind of shrank back into her pillows, knowing her face was giving away everything—he just didn't know what that everything was.

She had to let that kiss go and just focus on the present moment, stop over thinking everything and tricking herself into hoping that could happen again. Offhandedly, she thought of the weird reality where the Trickster… or, Gabriel, she guessed, had made her think for a split second she was married to Cas. She felt a little embarrassed, wondered if Cas realized the significance of that or… she glanced at him. He was leaning forward over his knees now, hands loosely clasped, face intense.

She cleared her throat, a little timid. "Cas, can you do me a favor? Don't, just don't tell my brothers. About the husband Cas thing with the Trickster. They'd never let me hear the end of it, and I just… it's weird. Please." She hoped she didn't have to say more, or explain further.

He looked at her a moment. "Of course." He paused, then seemed to have an idea, the smallest little smile coming over his face. He held out his hand, the pinky extended. For a split second, Alex looked at his hand, confused. Then, she realized what he was doing with a surprised little smile. She followed suit, held out her pinky and they wrapped their smallest fingers around each other's. "I am forever bound," he said, clearly pleased that he had remembered this and applied it in the proper social context. Oh my God, it was too cute and funny, the way he looked _so_ proud of himself for making a joke and remembering a gesture she'd taught him. Alex couldn't help it. Even after everything today—all the pain, all the _horrible pain_—that sight of him smiling, his eyes bright with a pleased, boyish twinkle warranted no other reaction from her—she smiled too and the smile reached her eyes.

* * *

Dean and Sam rushed into the hospital room to find Cas, sitting beside Alex's bedside, watching her. "Oh my God," Sam breathed. Dean, a fist to his mouth, stood still, physically trying to contain himself at the sight of Alex in the hospital bed, eyes closed, hooked up to all the monitors and IV drips. "She's sleeping," Cas explained, standing when he saw them. He came and joined them at the foot of the bed.

"Son of a _bitch_," Dean managed, his expression almost terrified, although a little less than before Cas had said the part about her only being asleep. "Will she be all right?"

Cas's frown deepened, his eyes went to Alex's sleeping form. "Physically, yes."

"And… _not _physically?" Dean prompted.

Cas's eyes slid to Dean's. "I don't know." They all looked at her small, sleeping shape there on the hospital bed. Cas's expression was unreadable. "Something is wrong with Alex."

"No _shit_, Sherlock—she just got torn to shreds in Gabriel's little house of horrors!" Dean almost shouted, to which Cas glanced at him, perturbed. "No. I—" he paused, searching for words. "It's not that. It's something else."

"What do you _mean_?" Dean demanded, getting even more agitated. Cas seemed frustrated, and answered Dean with an air of aggravated shortness, staring at him cynically. "I'm not _sure_, Dean."

Dean made a face and rolled his eyes, then huffed, letting it go, but mad about something else, of course. "Fine, oh and by the way, next time maybe let us know _which_ hospital you decide to beam up to, Scotty. We went to _three _other ones before finding you here." He brushed past Cas, went to Alex's side, put his hand on the side of her head, looked down at her and stroked his thumb across her hair, a pained expression on his face that Sam and Cas couldn't see. A moment passed. He leaned close, dropped a single kiss onto her forehead and whispered "I'm sorry" and "you better be okay, you little twerp," soft enough so that only she could hear, even though she was sleeping.

"Okay, well can you tell us the details of what happened to her?" Sam was asking Cas, oblivious to what Dean was doing. Sam got a sidelong glance from Cas, who seemed to be thinking deeply. "Yes," the angel said momentarily. "Gabriel showed her memories that were intentionally chosen to make old pains resurface. And he made her kill your father—at least, someone who looked like him. And then you, Sam, as well. And he tried to make her kill Dean. If I hadn't been able to get there… I believe she would be dead right now." Both the brothers looked at him, understanding perfectly, horrified. Cas's expression, too, was unusually terse.

"Son of a bitch. I should never have let that asshole go," Dean said, glaring daggers at the space in front of him. Sam, however, was tilting his head to the side, eyes narrowed. "So she killed someone who looked like Dad? _And _me? But... not Dean?" he asked. He got a little smile on his face. The kind he got when he was pissed about something.

"Why do you sound so surprised?" Cas asked, drawing a startled look from both of the Winchester boys. Cas looked at Sam with what could only be called a glare. "I saw her memories, Sam. What you've done." Sam's face went blank, and then Cas stepped a little closer. "And I know what you did to her recently." There was a darkness to Cas's voice that was making Sam look nervous. "Uh—yeah, I—"

Cas stepped a little closer, pivoting his chin down, staring at Sam unflinchingly, levelly. "Do not ever make the same mistake. Do you understand?"

Sam was frozen, staring, mouth half-open. Dean, however, was looking at Cas incredulously. "Whoa, dude—are you seriously threatening my brother right now?" He approached Cas with a glaring frown. "Is that any of your business?"

Cas turned, looked Dean straight in the eyes. "Yes. As a matter of fact, it is."

Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, _really_?" He was beside himself, indignant. "Last time I checked, this was _my _family, not yours. Did you forget to take your Prozac today or something Cas?"

Cas's eyes narrowed. "I don't know what Prozac is. I only want to be clear with Sam that I will not allow him to physically harm Alex like that again."

Sam looked reluctant, guilty. "Well, I won't. Trust me."

Just then, a nurse came to the door and looked directly at Cas, tapping lightly on the doorframe with her knuckles, a chart in her other hand. "Excuse me, sir, we have the pathology on your wife."

"Your _wife_?!" Dean asked, his face twisting in disbelief and offense. Sam's eyebrows had shot up high. Cas merely glanced at the brothers, then looked back at the nurse, who was looking between the two of them uncertainly. "Go ahead."

"Well, she's severely dehydrated and it kind of looks like sunstroke, or heat exhaustion. But, all of her labs are fine. She just needs some rest and fluids. We already got the stitches in her palm wound, so basically, we'll discharge her in a couple days, once we make sure she's shipshape. Nothing to worry about. Your wife is going to be fine." She smiled pleasantly at Cas, who nodded. "Thank you."

The nurse left. Dean was practically fuming, but Cas turned and spoke to him before he could sound off. "Alex lied to the staff so that I could stay with her. It's the hospital rules," he added, as if they wouldn't have known that.

"_What_, you couldn't have been her cousin or uncle?" Dean asked hostilely, and Cas frowned, not seeming to understand. Even Sam looked at Dean oddly, maybe embarrassed or annoyed with his brother's seemingly erratic behavior. "_Calm down_ Dean... maybe you're the one who needs some Prozac." Dean just glared at Sam, who gave him a weird look and tried reasoning with him. "You heard the nurse. Alex is gonna be fine. Just relax." Dean almost rolled his eyes at the suggestion.

Cas looked at Dean. "Never mind, look, the reason I was trying to find you and realized you three were missing is because I had news to share. I have it on good authority that a demon named Crowley has the Colt." At this piece of news, both Winchesters looked surprised, intrigued. Cas continued. "I've gotten close to finding him. I think I've almost... 'got him'."

Dean nodded gruffly. "Good. Good. Okay. Well, let's get Alex rested and okay and back to Bobby's. Then, we find this Crowley dude, get the Colt, kill the devil. Sound like a plan?" He was being a little facetious, still obviously mad. Sam rolled his eyes, but Cas was stoic. "Agreed. You two go rest. I'll watch over Alex tonight."

Dean got a crazy look on his face. "Oh _no_. I am _not_ leaving this hospital, and I am _not_ leaving you alone with her." Cas frowned, not understanding as Dean continued angrily. "That chair over has my name on it. And Sam, you're not going anywhere either. I want you all where I can see you." Sam rolled his eyes, his jaw clenched, but he said nothing. Even Cas looked annoyed at Dean's domineering attitude.

Ignoring them, Dean sat down in the chair beside Alex's bed and slouched down into the seat, kind of sullen and pissy. No one said anything else.

Eventually, the brothers fell asleep, leaving Castiel as the only one awake. The hours ticked by, but he stayed there at Alex's bedside, unmoving, listening to_ beep-beep-beep_ of the heart rate monitor. Watching the night shadows shift and move across Alex's sleeping form. The blinds on the window filled the room with stripes of darkness and soft slats of moonlight.

After staring at it for hours, around four in the morning, finally, he reached out and brushed the strand of hair that laid across her forehead away with his fingertips. She looked so peaceful as she slept.

* * *

_Author's Notes__: Another emotional roller coaster ride, thanks to the ship that is Calex! OH GOSH. Can you stand it? I can't. Writing this chapter took a bit longer because the emotional impact that I wanted needed some extra time and refining. I am a perfectionist sometimes. I also wanted to develop the idea of Sam having a darker side. I've always felt his backstory was lacking something, so I took matters into my own hands…PLEASE GUYS DON'T FREAK OUT I AM NOT CHANGING SAM TRUST ME PLEASE I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING WITH THIS-keep in mind, things may not be what they seem... I pinky promise you it will all be okay and be explained further. Anyway, whew. I FEEL SPENT. These chapters take it all out of me! Although, the part where she was in the kid world with horriblehusband!Cas was HILARIOUS to write ahaha. I HAD TO YOU GUYS. Just had to. I mean this is Supernatural where you can get away with weird stuff like that. _

_So, what's coming up next? Alex trying to process everything she found out… coming face to face with Lucifer… Cas's first huge mistake with Alex… (NOOO AHHH NOOO) and much, much more... As you may or may not know I am in the wedding industry and so work is crazy right now and updates will be slower until summer (I'm sorry!). But I promise the chapters will be worth the wait. I am soo excited for the next few chapters. Huge happenings and lots of Calex and family drama… _

_THANK YOU for all the reviews, follows, and amazing feedback. Some of you are claiming Calex as your OTP and guys I AM RIGHT THERE WITH YOU. I also want to let you guys know I DO have this entire story planned out already (like every season, and a general idea for season 9) and am SO excited about it, like you don't even know the amazingness ahead… ummm YAY. Please leave some love and don't forget to follow the tumblr (winchesteralex). _


	22. This Our Mortal Life

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 22 / This Our Mortal Life

"_God only cries for the living 'cause it's the living that are left to carry on." _  
- Diamond Rio

* * *

**The Next Morning**

_Beep, beep, beep_… the sound faded in as Alex slowly came out of a deep and dreamless sleep, becoming aware of herself again. She groggily opened her eyes half way, for a second not remembering where she was, or what had happened—and then she saw the hospital room ceiling above her, felt the uncomfortable pressure where IV needles were shoved into her arms, was aware of a dull throbbing pain in the palm of her hand where stitches criss-crossed her flesh. And with these physical pains as a reminder, she recalled yesterday. And the days before it. And whatever peace she'd had while asleep was immediately gone.

"Good morning, Alex," came a deep, husky voice above and beside her. Startled, Alex snapped awake, sitting up halfway then cringing, sore everywhere, but looking to where the voice had come from. Castiel's stern countenance stared down at her from where he stood beside the hospital bed—but his ever-present frown softened as their eyes locked.

"You're still here," she said clumsily, both a question and a somewhat stunned comment. She vaguely remembered falling asleep last night, totally exhausted but feeling at least a _little_ okay because Cas was there and hadn't left her alone. But she remembered even as she drifted off just _knowing _Cas would be gone in the morning—he always disappeared, after all—so seeing him still there made her stomach feel odd. Alex heard a soft, familiar snore at that moment and looked around the room, realizing that her brothers were there. Sam was in one of the corners, his giant body crammed into a hospital chair, an elbow on his knee and his face propped awkwardly on his hand as he leaned into the wall. And there on the other side of the room, Dean was slumped down uncomfortably in another chair, head awkwardly lolling back, mouth gaping widely.

Cas must have seen her looking at Dean, because he spoke up. "I don't think he meant to fall asleep. He was very irritable last night."

_Of course he was_. Alex glanced at Cas, feeling bad about falling asleep before her brothers had arrived—there was no telling what Dean had said or done last night. She could only imagine. Lately it had been nothing but mood swings and authoritarian rampages from her oldest brother, who was under daily-increasing levels of stress and didn't seem to know how to handle it any other way but to rip into his siblings and anyone else who dared get in his way. That, combined with his general weird attitude toward Cas lately—well, it had all probably come to a bit of a head yesterday. And sure, it didn't help that Castiel had just spirited her away to a hospital without a second word to Dean, but for God's sake, her brother was being a nightmare lately. She actually kind of wondered how exhausted Dean had to have been to fall asleep with Cas standing there—or maybe Cas had left and just returned a few minutes ago… she frowned a little and kind of cocked her head to the side, looking at Cas intently. "Have you... just been standing there all night?"

"Yes. I watched over you."

The second the words left his lips, Alex's mouth dropped open in surprise; she was more than a little flustered at the thought of him standing there just watching her sleep all night—that plus his earnest expression and the simple, open way he'd said 'I watched over you' blindsided her, made her feel oddly bare and exposed. And the silence that hung there after it seemed to demand she say something, _anything_. But she literally felt that she'd forgotten the entire English language. Couldn't think of a single damn thing to say. An eloquent "uhh…" escaped her, and Castiel just continued to look down at her, his expression concerned again. Then he surprised her again by drawing in a deep breath, simultaneously sitting on the edge of the bed as his eyebrows knit together in a thoughtful, troubled expression. Alex was frozen, noticing helplessly how close he was at that moment, sitting literally almost against the side of her hip. The end of his trench coat bunched up over the top of her thigh.

Pensive, he looked at her intently, oblivious. Alex was aware that she felt suddenly and intensely anxious not only because of his close proximity, but also because something about that _look_ on his _face_—and he had never hesitated like this before, _ever._ He took a long time to speak, clearly struggling. His troubled eyes searched hers in silence, then fell away. "Seeing you in torment was…" his eyes flicked back to hers, "unbearable to me."

Her heart could have stopped at that quiet, earnest confession. Their eyes remained locked, the air in the room seeming to be thin, hard to breathe. Cas's forehead was wrinkled deeply; he looked like he was waiting for her to say something, _anything_. But she was completely speechless. So much more than before. Because she knew that he _meant _what he'd said, and what's more, that he _didn't know what to do with it_. He had said it almost as if he were asking her what to do about it, how to react. And it was clear that he had been thinking about it, long and hard—waiting all night to tell her after maybe gathering the courage, or trying to decide how to say it. Alex swallowed. He had essentially confessed that her pain affected him on a level that frightened him. And that, in turn, scared _her—_because… what the hell did that mean for them? He looked down, just for a second, at her hand where it rested, palm down, beside her on the bed—his hand moved slightly where it rested on his knee—and then his eyes jumped back to hers again, waiting, anxious. His vivid blue eyes held so much honesty and pain and confusion.

All of this because he'd seen her come apart completely, seen Gabriel fling painful memory after painful memory at her, tear her down piece by piece and leave her a lost, crying, slobbering mess on all-fours. Somehow Cas had broken the divide and come to her in one of her darkest moments. And without a second thought, she had reached for him and he hadn't turned her away. He'd quietly held her and unknowingly anchored her in the middle of the storm of pain. As she looked at him right now, she didn't know how to tell him what that had meant for her. And actually, she felt like she shouldn't confess it at all, as it was too telling, too revealing of her innermost conflicted feelings—feelings that instinctually, she felt must be wrong to have. The things she thought of him, the way he'd gotten so close, so far under her skin—it alarmed her down to the core.

And still, she couldn't help but remembering, achingly, how Castiel had held her like no one else ever had, and right now, as they looked at each other, wordlessly with bated breath, she _wanted it again so badly_. Just to be inside the warmth of his arms, to be close and feel his heart beating, hear him breathing steadily next to her. Feel the gentle pull of his fingers against her back like yesterday, when he'd experimentally, hesitantly pulled her close. The way that he'd held her had momentarily banished her fears and pains. It had just been for a moment. But the moment had been long enough. Long enough to pull her back from the edge of obliterating, mind-numbing pain that threatened to scatter her in the wind.

And she remembered being struck, oddly, as she cried into his shoulder, that he smelled faintly like fabric softener. She'd been mystified as to why he smelled that way. Been comforted by it, too, because it seemed so common, so every day. And yet, she hadn't expected it. And then, before she could think about it too much, he'd wiped tears from her face, the gentle touch of his fingertips scarred into her memory. Why. _Why_? She was still asking herself why he had done all of that for her, and why the images and memories were so crystal clear in her mind, refusing to let her forget it at all. Cas had done so much for her—_too_ much for her, not only yesterday, but she couldn't even bring herself to think about _that_—she was thinking about how he'd clearly fought tooth and nail to reach her in Gabriel's little hell world. How he'd held her, even though it was obvious he wasn't sure how. And how he was still by her side right now, just like he had been _all night_. It all seemed to suggest one thing, that she had known all along, but not really fully believed. _He cared. _Much more than she had thought, much more than maybe anyone should.

Beside her, his hand again moved on his knee, inched forward just slightly. And all that Alex could think, desperate and afraid and so confused, was, _why would this angel care about me like this, let alone at all? _If it was because he had some kind of _feelings_ for her, _that_ was the most frightening thought of all to Alex. Not just because of everything that might happen in 2014. Because it was scary as hell to think of him seeing her in that way—there was _no reason_ for him to see her in any special, fond light; she was nothing special or even normal, out of all the human girls on earth, she would be the worst, stupidest choice—but everything that was now behind and between them sort of forced her to ask herself... was he in a place where he cared about her past the point of friendship? Because when he looked at her in this way, holding her locked in a gaze, searching her eyes, everything inside of Alex seemed to scream at her that he must, he _must_—

There was the sound of stirring to their left, and the moment was suddenly over, their gaze breaking, but not before they realized Dean was awake, looking at them, cranky, groggy, but quickly becoming alert. "The hell… what time is it?" he managed, voice gravelly. Cas stood up from where he sat, and even as Dean got out of his chair, there was a glare on his face. "You're still here?" The question was accusing and hostile, and Alex was surprised at how Dean just automatically went there, didn't even bother with unpleasant or cranky, just went full speed ahead to asshole.

Cas, however, didn't even blink, just met Dean's eyes evenly. "Yes."

Dean stared pointedly for a second, then gestured at the door to the room, rudely demanded "you wanna give us a minute?"

Cas looked at Alex briefly, then to Dean, frowning a little, then, under Dean's scowl, seeming to understand the implication. He somewhat grudgingly stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. Alex looked at Dean, upset. "What's your problem?"

"Was he here all night?" Dean demanded, ignoring her question, his eyes narrowed as he pointed an errant finger in the general direction Cas had just gone.

"I don't know," Alex lied, immediately, automatically; feeling a twinge of guilt the second she said it. Dean was looking at her in a very intent, judgmental way she didn't like, and she scowled back at him, sidelong, a lot more pissed off than she was letting on. He came a little closer, towering over her, arms crossed. "So you wanna tell me what went down in Trickster Land?"

She gave him a full on glare, tired of his crap and enraged that he was acting this way after everything she'd been through yesterday. "_No._ Screw off."

"_Excuse_ me?" he asked, incredulous, as if he couldn't believe his ears.

She just grabbed the TV remote and switched it on, not looking at him purposefully. "You heard me."

Dean stood there a second, completely ready fight with her. A million sarcastic comments and retorts ran across his mind, all perfect for pissing her off and hurting her feelings and putting her in her place. But even as he thought that, he kind of did a mental double take, realizing that geez, she was in the _hospital_ and had been put through hell yesterday—he wasn't even really _sure _about what exactly had gone down, all he had to go on were some vague details that Cas had mentioned. Dean stayed silent, stewing even as he realized that he was being an absolute douchebag.

But speaking of douchebags, Dean's mind turned to someone he _didn't _mind picking a fight with. The guy who had taken Alex, zapped off with her and not even let Dean know where to. The guy who saw no problem posing as Alex's husband, who had spent all friggin' night there in the same room with her, and was even _sitting on Alex's bed staring at her intensely _when Dean had woken up. The warning he had given himself in 2014 seemed to be screaming through his mind anew like a blaring alarm, danger,_ danger_!

Dean left Alex's room and barged out into the hallway, looking both ways for the angel in question. Cas was a few doors down, looking into a patient's room through the open door, staring curiously at the flowers at the patient's bedside. Dean marched toward him, every freaked out, scared shitless thought compelling him forward.

He hadn't thought much of the warning he'd given himself in 2014, not after asking Alex about it a month ago—it had sounded absolutely ridiculous—junkless dweeby Cas and weirdo awkward Alex, a _couple_? He would find it funny if it wasn't starting to legitimately worry him. When he asked her about it when they got back, she'd smacked down the idea immediately, which had settled him, assured him, effectively sent the worry packing in Dean's mind. Until yesterday.

The image of Cas, holding a woozy Alex up fleetingly passed over his mind's eye—the sight had freaked him the hell out; both of them bleeding and battered and clinging to each other in a way that seemed too close, too personal. He'd remembered his words to himself in 2014, when he'd warned, "_they'll undo each other; destroy each other. It's a train wreck waiting to happen_."

He had taken in the way Cas held his sister, protective and invested, not stoic, not blasé, and it had stunned Dean. Cas held Alex _like he meant it_—there was no other way to describe it—like a man held a woman. And Dean remembered how Alex was clutching to the angel by handfuls of shirt, as if for dear life, as if she were depending on him completely. It had unsettled Dean in the deepest way possible, but he'd tried to tell himself it was nothing, tried to believe the best of both his friend and his sister, but was still left wondering when the hell this had happened. Last time he checked Alex was annoyed by Cas, didn't trust him much. Maybe he should have paid closer attention, because now he was beginning to suspect the worst.

The scene he'd witnessed when he'd woken just a few minutes ago flashed across his mind again: his sister, propped up in her bed, Cas_ sitting _on the bed, entirely too close to her, as they gazed at each other, their expressions so_ intense_ and disappearing the second they realized Dean was awake. Cas, standing up, as if trying to _hide _something from him. And all of it was setting something off inside Dean, some raging fear that everything he'd warned himself about was true, was possible, and _maybe already happening_.

Dean had reached Cas in all of ten seconds, his jumbled, chaotic thoughts making him physically shaky. He roughly grabbed the angel by the shoulder, demanding his attention angrily. "Okay, Cas, you tell me _right now_—what the hell is going on with you and my sister?"

Cas seemed perplexed by the sudden assault, looking at Dean's hand with a disapproving frown, then at Dean with narrowed eyes. "I'm her protector."

"Yeah? What, you don't have a _thing_ for her?" Dean pressed angrily, not letting go of Cas, instead grabbing a fistful of the trench coat covering Cas's shoulder. The angel's head tilted slightly to the side in perplexed bewilderment and he ignored Dean's physical escalation. "What kind of… 'thing'?"

Dean was disgusted, impatient with Cas's stupidity. "You are such a pain in my ass," he griped through tightly clenched teeth, and then his voice raised into a near shout, and he shoved Cas slightly with the hand that gripped his shoulder. "Like, _a romantic thing_!"

At that, Cas's expression darkened, and he stepped further into Dean's space, voice lowered, as he grabbed Dean's hand off of his shoulder and pushed it back to Dean's side, his superhuman strength overpowering Dean's attempt at resistance easily. "You should watch your tone with me," Castiel almost growled. "I have tolerated your disrespect toward me for a very long time, Dean." The angel was clearly angry. "I have proved myself again and _again _to you. Why are you angry with me?"

"Because in 2014, I found out _you're _the one who gets Alex _killed_, okay?" Dean spat out, and there it was, out in the open. Cas looked as all the air had left his lungs. He went completely still, his face screwing up in disbelief. "_What_?"

"Yeah, apparently," Dean said sarcastically. Because if he said it any other way, he might lose his front and crumble from the sheer helpless, scared things he was going through inside. There was general horror on Castiel's face, an expression Dean hadn't seen there before.

"Why didn't you mention that when you told me everything?" Cas asked, sounding genuinely upset, almost angry, too. Dean met his demanding gaze haltingly. He'd taken the angel aside when Cas had checked in a couple weeks ago and told him, in general terms, about 2014, but he hadn't exactly known how to bring up that little part about Alex. He also hadn't really seen the point, because he had honestly believed it was a bunch of weirdo crap, mostly, until yesterday and today. At Dean's silence, Cas relented, his face softening. He touched Dean's shoulder gently, imploringly—the same shoulder that held the angry, red handprint Cas had burned onto him in Hell. Dean looked at him harshly as Cas spoke. "It can't be true, Dean. You _know_ that I would never let her die," Cas reasoned, but he sounded disturbed, unsure, as if he didn't know what to believe. He took his hand off of Dean's shoulder.

"Well it wasn't exactly in your control anymore, was it, Cas?" Dean asked him bitterly. "You weren't an angel anymore, remember? You were a friggin' human, and 2014 me warned _me_ me to keep you two apart." Cas shook his head, either not understanding, or flat out refusing. "We can't be apart, I'm her guardian angel." Dean's expression darkened as Cas continued. "I've been charged to watch over her for her lifetime."

Dean laughed humorlessly, seeing the irony right away. "If memory serves, you were also charged with being obedient to heaven, and I don't see you following _that_ little rule anymore."

Visibly caught off guard by that statement, Cas was momentarily silent, almost guiltily so, and Dean looked at him in superiority. Then, Cas raised his chin, face neutral again. "Dean, I promise you. I will never let harm come to her."

"Then why is she in a hospital bed right now, huh Cas?" Dean raged, not really sure how Cas could be so ridiculously egotistical and blind. "Cuz you did such a damn great job protecting her yesterday!"

Hurt shimmered across Cas's face before his eyes lowered in shame. Dean regretted his words, just a little bit. But then even more when Cas spoke, not looking at Dean. "I suppose I did fail her. And you. I couldn't rescue any of you from Gabriel. He was too powerful for me. Especially now." His eyes flicked up, pained, and Dean knew he meant now that he was cut off from heaven. "I'm deeply sorry, Dean."

Dean had to clench his jaw to hold back his annoyance that Cas had just made it so much harder to be angry with him. He relented, remembering everything Cas had ever done for him, how much he owed the guy. And truth be told, Dean was tired of being angry at everyone. In fact, he was beginning to feel kind of desperate. But he couldn't admit to that. He took a deep breath, trying to reconcile his anger and suspicion to how much he liked and wanted to trust the angel. "Listen, Cas, buddy. I appreciate everything you've done for us. I do. I'm just—up against a whole_ hell _of a lot, you know?"

"Yes. I do know," Cas replied, surprising Dean. "That's why I'm trying to help you." He looked at Dean meaningfully, the expression tinged with guilt. "It's the least I can do. After all we've been through together."

Dean couldn't hold his gaze, and let out a heavy, guilty, ashamed huff of air. Why was every damn relationship in his life like this? Full of angry fights and guilt that never let go. Cas was right—they had been through a lot together. Cas had done more for him than most would ever have. And it was easy to forget that when angry. This angel had raised him from Hell. Restored Alex's voice. Saved their asses multiple times. Defied heaven and_ died _for them. Dean really did have no right to fly off the handle this way at Castiel. And he knew it. Dean looked at Cas grudgingly, feeling like an ass, and pissed that he felt that way, too.

Maybe he was reading into a situation that wasn't even there at all. Cas hadn't answered him, _exactly_, about Alex. But was it because Cas didn't even understand that possibility? Didn't understand the question because it was so unfathomable to him? Maybe the things Dean had been upset by—the way Cas had held Alex, the way he'd been gazing at her in the bed—maybe he was overreacting and just misinterpreting it. Cas was a pretty intense, unaware, awkward guy, right? And hell, to a passerby, the way Cas had touched Dean's shoulder a minute ago could have been misinterpreted. Dean really wanted to believe it was as simple as that. But after the warning he'd given himself… after everything… he would never be able to let it go completely, and he knew that. But today, he needed to just drop it instead of allowing this wavering friendship to break apart. Cas was waiting patiently for Dean to speak again, watching him silently, somberly.

Dean shook his head and shrugged mildly, spreading his hands. "I'm sorry man. It's just, you told me, once upon a time, that all roads lead to the same destination, that destiny can't be changed." He felt at a loss. "So, I mean, what the hell am I supposed to do? Just let you and Alex pal around, become friends or whatever else? That's me signing her death certificate, if 2014 me was telling the truth. Can I take that chance?" Cas's eyebrows moved together just slightly.

Dean was swallowing, staring at some unfocused point. "I can't let her die. Not her, ever. And not Sam, again. They're all I've got left, and I can't lose them, Cas, not after everyone else. And basically, I've seen the future where they both die. So the only option I got left is to fight like hell to make sure that doesn't happen." He looked at Cas openly, not sure what else to say. Cas looked empathetic, once again surprising Dean. "I understand."

Dean looked at Cas fully, letting himself be real for a just a moment. To sound the way he felt. Broken and scared and desperate. "Do you still believe it, Cas? That fate, destiny, whatever, can't be changed?"

Cas met his eyes with a grim hesitance, a muscle in his cheek jumping, his brows furrowing. "Truthfully... I'm not sure anymore."

Dean went still, looking at Cas intently, unsure why the answer struck him as oddly ominous. Maybe it was because for a flicker of a second, he wasn't sure if Cas were telling the truth or not.

* * *

**Later That Day**

The TV had been off for awhile now. Silence just sounded better. Alex stared out the hospital window from where she sat up in the bed. She couldn't really see anything out the window except some tree branches. Sometimes, squirrels ran along the limbs, stopped, shook their tails, then darted onwards. She watched idly, disinterested, not really seeing with her eyes, just thinking.

Dean had come back in a few minutes after he'd disappeared. He'd ignored Alex and shaken Sam awake. He'd been sort of quiet and grumpy, but at least not a total douche like before. He'd apparently run Cas off, too, because the angel never reappeared. Maybe that was for the best, but it made Alex feel a little sad at the same time, too. She had wanted him to stay. However, the intense, crazy thoughts his presence had put her through were still there, in the back of her mind, bothering her, confusing her, which is why it was probably best for him to be gone. He'd probably show up again in a week or two, like he always did. In the mean time, she'd be left to her own devices, as usual, second-guessing everything. Wondering if she were crazy or what, imagining things. But the thing was, she really didn't think she was.

Sam and Dean had stayed with her for awhile, but it hadn't exactly been the Brady Bunch. They'd sat around in tense silence, watching TV halfway, ignoring the elephant in the room. Sam tried asking her at one point if she were okay, implying he wanted to know what had happened—but she had told them she didn't want to talk about it, more or less. Kind of rudely, actually. And after that, they left, saying they were going on a supply run, and then Sam texted to let her know they were grabbing lunch, too, and did she want anything. No. She hadn't.

Alex was using the opportunity of solitude to mull over everything that Gabriel had put her through. In truth it all seemed kind of like one of her bad dreams. Like it couldn't have actually happened, that it was all in her mind. And well, she needed to remind herself that it _hadn't _happened, not really, and it hadn't been real, not actually. But her pain? That _had_ been real. And Cas, _he_ had been real. The way he'd held her… that had been real. _That had been real_.

And, more disturbingly, the memories of her family… those had been real. She wished they weren't. She'd pushed the ones she remembered away on purpose. And the ones she'd never seen before, well. They hurt on an entirely new level. They scared her—made her want to be far away from her brothers—made her feel like she literally couldn't trust anyone ever again. But underneath the negative feelings and the strong desire to bash their heads into a wall and leave, never come back… she refused to let herself think like that. Because she was deeply suspicious, after some thought, that maybe Gabriel was playing an angle where he wanted her to fall to pieces and break the brothers apart so they would "play their roles." He had said he did all that crap to her because she was like him and she needed to see the truth. But she really didn't buy that crap. She refused to be tricked. And he did call himself the Trickster, after all. But that didn't make sticking with her brothers any easier after feeling betrayed, rejected, and lied to by them.

She heard an increasingly familiar sound—Cas arriving, and looked away from the window, startled out of her thoughts. Castiel stood there at the foot of her bed, his hands clasped behind his back. That was new. "Hello, Alex."

"Hi Cas," she said, glad to see him back (surprised, too). There was a noticeable spike in her anxiety level at his arrival. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to check on you," he said, as if that should have been obvious. He glanced around the room. "Where are your brothers?"

"Went to go get food. They, uh, hate hospital food." She glanced at the tray of untouched food beside her. And so did she.

Cas didn't seem to notice the tray, he was looking at her with an expression that was something like hopeful or uncertain, but also nearly excited. "I… have something for you." He came to the side of the bed, and his expression reminded her of when he'd been so proud of himself for remembering the pinky promise. "I noticed other patients, in other rooms, had flowers…" from behind his back, he produced a little bundle of yellow wildflowers. He held them out to her and she felt her face go slack when she saw a crappy little twine knot held them together. She stared, suddenly incredibly upset. Cas was saying, "I found them in a meadow right in the middle of a highway—"

Alex couldn't look at him—_oh my God._ Yellow wildflowers, tied in a shitty knot,_ just_ like Cas had left on her grave in 2014. Cas had stopped mid sentence, confused, taking in her sudden crumpled face. He stepped back just slightly. "Why are you crying?" He looked at the flowers, still in his hand, confounded, almost alarmed. "Are they the wrong kind? Is this an inappropriate gesture?"

Alex tried to compose herself, but it didn't really work—she hadn't even realized when she'd started crying. "No… they're, they're, very nice, t-thank you." She couldn't stop staring at the flowers. And realizing that all the times she'd been in the hospital, she'd never been given flowers. Now, she felt emotional for different reasons. Because she was genuinely sort of touched. That Cas saw other patients with flowers, thought of her sitting in a room without any, decided she should have some, went out into a _highway median_ and picked her some damn wildflowers. Gathered them into a bunch, tied them together with twine he got who knows where. Tied them together in a horrible excuse for a bow, like a little kid might. She must have seemed entirely depressed as she stared at them, because Cas looked positively devastated as his eyes went from her face to the flowers, uncertain. "I don't understand—I thought you'd find them pleasing," Cas said, fumbling, and growing more confused by the second. "Are they... the wrong color?"

"No," she said, half to herself, looking at them, almost physically pained at the memories they stirred inside. She saw a wooden cross etched in her initials, flowers just like these sitting there at the base. "They're... the right color." She reached out, took them, feeling horrible, not wanting him to think she was crazy. Or ungrateful. Knowing she couldn't make him understand why—she refused to tell him about all of that. It was too painful, and he wouldn't know how to handle it.

He was mystified at her comment that they were the right color, but the moment was interrupted as Dean and Sam walked through the door. "What are you doing here?" Dean asked, not exactly friendly, but not as rude as earlier, either. Alex had quickly dashed away the tears on her cheeks. Dean hadn't noticed, too busy giving Cas the evil eye. But Sam was looking at this intently, his eyebrows furrowed.

Cas seemed to take Dean's question as a 'get lost' because he straightened and told Dean, "I was just leaving. I still have much work to do tracking down this demon Crowley." He glanced at Alex, then back at Dean. "I'll be in touch." And he disappeared.

Dean looked at Alex, eyebrows raised, not exactly short on attitude. "Nice flowers."

"Why are you being such an asshole?" Alex asked pointedly. "Because it's a Monday," Sam joked, attempting to lighten the mood. He got a sharp glare from Dean and a little, forced smile from his twin, who just couldn't summon a real one.

"I'm not being an asshole, I'm looking out for you," Dean said, addressing Alex gruffly. "Future me told me Cas is the reason you died, remember?" He made a face and threw his hands up. "Sorry for caring."

Alex said nothing. Just stared at the wildflowers in her hand. Sam looked at his brother sidelong. "Dean, to be fair, do you really think that was a real future Zachariah showed you two? I mean—"

"I'm not taking that chance," Dean said, cutting him off sternly. "On _either _of your lives. Okay? So call me an asshole, I don't care." His pissy expression and general attitude didn't really convince the twins, who looked at each other at the same time, as if to say 'yeah, sure.' Sam, a little uncomfortable, visibly pushed aside the retort he was holding inside and looked at Alex, cleared his throat. "Uh, so listen, we stopped and talked to the doc. They want to do your psych evaluation in a few minutes."

Alex's eyebrows shot up high, and then she began sitting up in the bed. "Oh, forget _that_." She ripped the IVs out of her arms even as both of her brothers gaped in horror, Sam kind of springing forward, arms outstretched, trying to stop her, but it was already too late. "What the _hell _are you doing?" Dean demanded, totally aghast, like she'd lost her mind.

"I don't need a shrink asking me twenty questions about my life and my brain, okay? It wasn't a suicide attempt and I don't care if it's standard procedure, I'm ready to get out of here anyway." She shoved her shoes onto her feet unceremoniously, and Sam's plea of "Stop, Alex—" fell on deaf ears.

"No. I'm _fine," _she pretty much spat out, ignoring the stabbing pain in her side and the lightness in her head. "Let's go. Before they figure out the health insurance stuff they got from me this morning was fake."

Dean and Sam looked at each other, kind of grudging to admit that she did kind of have a point… and besides, Alex was already at the door. She looked back at where the wild flowers Cas had brought her had been forgotten on the bed. She glanced at Dean, who was watching her closely. And without much other choice, she turned, walked out, leaving the flowers there.

* * *

**Twenty Minutes Later**

**Mama Q's Diner**

Dean shoved the plate of pancakes and sausage at Alex, who was practically glaring at him across the table. "Eat it."

"I'm _not hungry_, Dean, I _told you_," she said. She didn't appreciate this—she didn't want to eat, but Dean had insisted they stop to get her something. And then _she_ had insisted that she didn't want anything, and besides, Dean and Sam had already eaten, so it was pointless to go if she wasn't going to eat either. But Dean was set on her eating something, and had ordered her a huge breakfast plate and kept pressing, like right now. "Just eat it, will you?" He barked, losing whatever patience he'd had. "You need your strength!"

She was getting more angry by the second, and she kind of lost it at this point. "Stop telling me what to do!" She shot back heatedly, and they glared at each other. At this point, she wouldn't eat even if she were hungry, just to spite him. Sam glanced between them, uncomfortable, as Alex pushed the plate back to Dean slowly, purposefully, speaking slowly, her voice dripping with attitude. "I'm _fine_. Just stop it, Dean. Everyone, but especially _you_, need to stop acting like I'm about to break in half or like you can boss me around all day long."

At that, Dean smiled in superiority, leaning back in the booth casually, knowing exactly how much that would piss her off. "So, Gabe really got to you, huh?"

He wouldn't have that stupid, smug smile on his face if he knew exactly what that all entailed. "Yeah, he did, okay Dean?" Alex replied angrily, and his smile disappeared at her brash tone. She scowled at her brothers across the table. One was giving her the 'I don't understand' puppy dog eyes. The other was giving her the threatening '_make_ me understand' glare. And Alex was outraged, her anger driven by the things Gabriel had showed her about them yesterday. "Gabriel, Trickster, whoever he is, showed me some messed up stuff. Made me _do _some pretty messed up stuff."

"Yeah, Cas gave us the Spark's Notes last night," Dean said, and his word choice and asshole tone got an even more agitated glare from Alex. "Well thanks for your concern," she said snidely, to which Dean just rolled his eyes. Alex could have punched him in the frigging mouth. He was the worst. He could be so heartfelt and caring sometimes, but if you didn't give him what he wanted, he threw temper tantrums better than any four year old ever could. Sam leaned across the table, intent, concerned, and focused on Alex—polar opposite of Dean right now. "What happened, Alex?" He asked gently. "What did he show you?"

Alex glanced at him fleetingly, kind of dodging his inquisitive, caring stare, her rage ebbing off a little. She felt exposed and sad suddenly instead of pissed, not sure how Sam could always be so calm and placating even when she was being purposefully bitchy. "You don't wanna know," she answered quietly, looking down at her lap.

"Oh, we _don't_?" Dean asked rudely. "_Dean_—" Sam said, giving his brother an exasperated, pointed look.

"Shut up Sam!" Dean retorted, to which Alex's furrowed brow returned as she leveled Dean with an angry stare, her hackles raising. "Don't _talk_ to him like that, Dean!" He seemed surprised she was standing up to him again, but Alex had just had it with the shitty attitude, the domineering crap, and the bullying. "_God_—what is your _problem_?" she asked, disgusted.

She looked Dean dead in the eyes, coldly. She wanted to get back at Dean, make him feel as crappy as he'd made her feel, and she knew exactly how. And then, she was already talking before she could really stop herself. "You wanna know so bad about the absolute hell I went through? Which part, Dean, the part where Dad showed up and tried to kill me, taunted me, tortured me? Or the part where I had to kill Sam in cold blood? _Or_ the part where you dug a knife into my chest?" She pointed at the place where gauze was taped to her chest, and Dean looked stunned. "Or maybe you want to know about the horrible, gut-wrenching memories Gabriel made me go through again. _Or_ the crappy things things you two did and thought I'd never find out about." Sam looked especially nervous at that statement, but Dean, looked unsure, like he couldn't imagine what she were talking about.

Alex was like a train going full steam at this point, no possibility of stopping. "I saw you, Dean, telling Dad I was only gonna get in the way of that last hunt he went on. You begged him to leave me behind because I was gonna_ hold you back_." Dean looked startled, and Alex gave him a facetious little smile. "Really heartwarming memory, right? I thought so."

She turned her attention to Sam, who looked pained by association, and a little nervous, because he knew he was next. She couldn't muster the same fiery, lecturing tone. When she spoke to him, she sounded more heartbroken and confused than anything else. "And Sam. Like, twelve years old and straight up _lying_ to some kids and telling them I was disabled and _asthmatic_ and that I wouldn't want to play football with them… then coming over to me and then lying to _me_, saying the kids didn't want me to play. I mean, what the hell? Why?"

Sam looked positively shocked, and in quick succession, guilty. Dean, highly uncomfortable, was looking at Sam oddly. Alex chuckled sardonically, momentarily getting small, dark satisfaction out of seeing them squirm, out of seeing their guilt. "But guys, that's not even the best one. Picture this, right? Sam, like, killed some kittens in an alley—ripped them to friggin' shreds, and Dean was there too, you guys wanna explain what the hell _that_ was?"

"That—" Sam stumbled verbally, horrified. "I—you have to believe me. I don't understand how it happened, or why. It was almost like I was possessed."

"But you_ weren't,_" Dean said, giving Sam a harsh look. "I checked." Sam looked chastised and repelled. Alex looked at Dean piercingly. "Dean, you knew about that all these years and never told me. Why?" she asked, to which Dean gave her a disbelieving look, like she was crazy to even suggest that.

"Because you were a damn kid, and a pretty friggin' fragile one at that, don't you think it would have, uh, like freaked you the hell out to learn your brother was like doing serial killer crap behind motels?" He almost seemed to think it was funny at this point. "_Why_ would I ever tell you, huh? At _any_ point?"

Alex leaned forward, unamused—she had thought about this all morning long. "Because I _could have told you_ that Sam would never do that. Use your brain for _two seconds_, Dean. Sam _loves _animals. Sam was the biggest pansy in the world about blood and guts growing up." Sam looked at her, double-taking, not sure whether to be offended or happy she was standing up for him. Alex shrugged at him. "You know it's true, so don't even," she said, getting an exasperated, but also kind of resigned look from her twin. Alex turned her attention back to Dean. "I mean, yeah, the whole thing is super freaky. Super, super freaky." She frowned, not looking at anything in particular. Thinking hard. "But... not quite right. Just not. It had to be something to do with Azazel, right? Or…" she trailed off, thinking of something. "I mean... _what if that memory_ _isn't even real_? Did either of you consider that?"

They both sat back a little bit, their faces giving away the fact that obviously they hadn't. Alex had just thought of it, herself. Sam looked hesitant and unsure. "But who could have done that? And more importantly, _why_? That makes no sense."

"But it does make sense," Alex said, believing it herself, getting intense. "Think about it. Maybe it's the angels trying to screw with us, or demons, even. Trying to turn us against each other. It wouldn't be the first time they've messed with our heads."

Dean snorted, his momentary intrigue gone. "Come on, Al. That'd be nice to believe it didn't happen, but from where I'm sitting, it sure as hell did. I was _there_. It's not like the glove doesn't fit—Sam's got a dark side, and we all know it." Sam's jaw tightened at that thoughtless comment, but he said nothing, letting Dean continue on his tirade. "Sam's the demon blood junkie. The one who set freakin' fires for kicks."

At that comment, the twins exchanged a terse look. Alex looked at Dean long and hard. Sam's gaze dropped into his lap and he remained silent. Alex wet her lips and clasped her hands on the table, looking Dean dead in the eyes reluctantly, jaw clenched tightly as she hesitated. She should have known this day would come when she'd say these words aloud. "Sam wasn't the one who started those fires, Dean. They were pretty much all me."

Dean stared at her, completely blindsided. "_What_?"

"Yeah," was all Alex said, looking away, uncomfortable. This was something she wasn't proud of. And had tried to forget. And succeeded, too, until a few minutes ago.

Dean wheeled on Sam, turning himself physically to stare at his brother. "You _covered_ for her?"

Sam returned his brother's stare, not backing down. "Yeah Dean, I did."

Dean looked confused, horrified, and at a loss. He was looking back at his sister, still too shocked to be pissed off yet. "You wanna tell me _why_ you would do that crap, Alex?"

Alex wasn't really sure, and had to think about it a minute. She remembered the thrill of watching flames lick, devour, and destroy objects. It had started with balls of paper and scraps of cloth. And then, daring herself one time, she set a library book on fire, just sat and watched it burn. Wondered if everyone would think she were a hero and an amazing person if she secretly started a fire, let others see it, then put it out herself, made it seem like she saved everyone. She liked that idea a lot. She'd started fires in school bathrooms and libraries and one time, even the cafeteria, but always alone, not brave enough to really burn anything big or that could get out of hand. She remembered Sam, finding her several times and freaking out and then making her hide when Dean showed up. Telling Dean he'd done it. She'd done it maybe ten times in her life time, mostly in grade school, and Sam had never told anyone—ever.

Dean was currently staring at her, waiting for an explanation. She shrugged briefly, embarrassed. "I guess, I dunno. That I wanted to destroy things, because I felt like my life was so destroyed." She paused, realizing the irony of all of this, realizing the possibility. "Maybe I'm dark inside, too," she murmured, a little frightened at the thought, but also really, really sure it was a good possibility. She thought of their whole lives. The monsters they had faced, the things they had done in dark places, things they wanted to forget. She glanced at Dean, the man who had tortured souls in hell and confessed he'd _enjoyed _it. "Maybe we _all_ are," she said cynically, and for a moment, the table was silent and somber.

Out of nowhere, their washed out, forty-something waitress reappeared in her cherry-red apron. "All right, guys, how ya'll doin'?" She asked, grinning at them as she chomped and smacked loudly on some gum. "Get ya anything else?"

"No. We're good," Sam said hollowly, and the irony of his words wasn't lost on Alex. The waitress's her smile fell as she took in the dejected occupants of her table. She seemed to realize she'd had some poor timing. "Uh, okay, well just holler if ya need anything," she said, and attempted a cheerful smile. But no one was looking at her.

After the waitress walked off, Alex looked up, caught her twin's eye. "Sam, you covering for me like that was one of the best and bravest things you've ever done for me. I knew it then, and I know it now." There was a temporary lull, in which the twins looked at each other anxiously, all their childhood closeness remembered mutually. And then Alex continued. "But… we gotta talk about that lying, manipulating crap. You made it seem like those kids didn't want me to play… you lied straight to my face. And I get the feeling that wasn't the only time. Cuz I remember you telling me stuff like that a lot. That the other kids didn't want me around or didn't want to play with me." She almost didn't want to know the answer to her next question. "How often did you do stuff like that?"

"More than I should have," Sam admitted, agonized. Alex shook her head slowly, despondent, not understanding. "But _why_?"

Her twin almost looked at the point of tears now, shaking his head and barely able to look her in the eye. Even Dean looked openly affected, like he was dreading the answer, too. Sam struggled. "It's not that I didn't want you to have fun—I just thought—in a weird way, that I was keeping you safe, because I mean, kids _did_ make fun of you. They called you horrible stuff, and maybe some of them might not have, if I gave them the chance to let you into their circles, but—I hated to see you hurt. I still do." Sam drew a deep breath. "And, also, I just—I just wanted you to _look up to me_." His jaw tightened. He was clearly ashamed. "I wanted you to love me like you loved Dean. And you loved Dean because he _did_ protect you, and he made you feel safe, and he comforted you when you were sad." At Alex's confused, almost hurt expression, Sam shook his head, humiliated. Dean had put an elbow on the table, and was scrubbing his face with the palm of his hand—his guilt and frustration and disbelief was almost palpable.

But Sam wasn't done, even though he was clearly upset. "And it's so_ stupid_. I don't know, it's like I just figured out a way to make you like me more, depend on me more, and I did it. It was pathetic, it was crazy." He put his head in his hands and stared at the tabletop. "God, I really am a psychopath."

"No, you're _not_," Alex said immediately, passionately, because she knew exactly what he meant—how freakish and stupid he felt for his mistakes, same as her. She huffed a frustrated breath. "I mean, well, we're _all _messed up, there's really no getting around that, right? But I mean, how could we even hope to be normal, especially when we were kids and teens? We barely had a parent. Dad was gone, constantly. We moved, _constantly_. Everything changed except the three of us. It was always us three. And maybe we were a lot more dysfunctional than we thought, and I mean, we already knew we were dysfunctional, but..." she trailed off, looking at Sam, who looked like he was waiting for her to tear into him. "Sam… you didn't have to do all that stuff to get me to love you. I mean, me loving you was… always just a given."

Sam could say nothing. He looked so deeply regretful. Silence stretched out between them. "God, Sam," Dean said finally, sounding tired, empty, and maybe a little disappointed, too. Sam looked at his older brother in earnest, broken sadness. "I know. It was stupid and pitiful of me. I know. But I lived my _whole life_ in your shadow, Dean. I mean, Dad loved you the most, because you were the most like him, and I always felt second or third best."

Dean's eyebrows shot up in genuine wounded surprise. "Are you_ kidding _me? _You_ were Dad's favorite, Sammy. You were the most normal one of us, like with good grades and a nice little future—no matter what I did, Dad just…" he trailed off, his eyes ghosting over years of pain. "I always disappointed him." Dean looked directly at Sam, pushing past his inner demons. "He didn't see you as a failure, okay?" There was a self-deprecating smile playing on Dean's mouth. "That was me."

"Dean," Sam appealed, "Dad might have been_ hard _on you, but he_ loved_ you, and you know he did. I was the odd one out, or, at least, that's how I felt." He looked miserable. "I was jealous of you both."

Alex looked at him like he had two heads. "Wait… I get why you might be jealous of Dean, but me, too? I was the kid who no one ever liked, the kid who couldn't speak a single word out loud."

Sam didn't meet her gaze. "I was jealous because, I just never felt like part of the family. I felt like a freak no matter where I went." Dean irritably crossed his arms, half rolling his eyes. "Oh my God. Well boo hoo. We're _all_ pretty much freaks at this point, why do _you_ get to bitch and moan about it?"

Sam looked at Dean hostilely, but waited a second before replying, clearly keeping himself calm. "I just know I wanted a life outside of hunting and paranormal crap and you _all_ gave me hell for it." He looked stone-faced. "It was like I was damned if I did, damned if I didn't. Sometimes still feels that way."

"So why are you here now?" Alex asked softly, sort of dreading the answer. Sam did one of those little airy laughs, trying to cover up his real feelings. "Well, what else is there for me? Every time I try to have a normal life, it falls apart. It doesn't work. I guess I'm meant to do this. Even if I don't really want to all the time." Dean looked at Sam, having the audacity to look somewhat hurt. Sam backpedaled a little. "Don't get me wrong. I know it's important. I know that."

Dean huffed at Sam, his angry fire gone, replaced by darkness. "But if your heart's not in it… why bother?"

"Because you guys are in it," Sam said earnestly. "Yeah, I spend half the time being annoyed and pissed off with both of you, but at the end of the day… even though I'm not so sure about the rest of everything else in life… I'm here for you guys. You're my family." He shrugged a little, grimly. "Also, I kinda raised Lucifer. I need to put him back down."

"We," Dean said tersely. "We are gonna put him down. Family affair."

"But—" Sam started.

"You know the drill, Sam," Dean cut him off. "We stick together. Even if everything in the damn universe is trying to tear us apart. We've tried to do it separately, and it never works." The brothers fell silent. It wasn't a comfortable, amicable silence.

Alex had felt hopeful, a minute ago, that they were going to reconcile something here. Of course not. She wanted to kick something. She looked at the two of her idiot brothers, and hard. "You know, it's like every damn thing in our lives—angels, demons, even the three of us—are working together without even realizing it to tear us apart and turn us against each other so that the showdown between Michael and Lucifer happens."

Dean's expression was snide and Alex looked at him dangerously, daring him to say something. "Gabriel was trying to tell me that I should just give up and let the whole thing play out however it will, walk away from you guys. Kept going on about how I didn't have a part to play… but, you know what?" She paused, then spat out, "I don't _accept _that. _He_ gave up on _his _family, decided he would let fate do whatever it wanted with his brothers. Well, that's his problem. I'm not about to make the same stupid choice he did. I'm not walking out or disappearing on you two jerks."

Dean and Sam looked at her silently as she continued, her voice rising a little in impassioned conviction. "Who _cares_ if fate wanted to have it be Sam and Dean in the end, battling it out as Mike and Lucy? Fate, prophecies, _screw it_. They forgot about me. I'm not just a bystander. I refuse to be. This is _my _family, too. And I'll be damned if I let you two kill each other, now or ever. We are gonna stick together, stop fighting each other and start fighting the devil." She grabbed the untouched plate of now-cold pancakes and sausage, yanked it to herself. "And when we hand fate its own ass on a silver platter, let's see who's laughing then." She stabbed into a sausage link with her fork, leaving her brothers in stunned, pensive silence.

And that was the Winchesters in a nutshell. Always fighting, always at odds. But when it came down to it, willing to lay aside their differences for the greater good. Never willing, not completely, to walk away from each other. Still, Alex felt like she'd been run over by an emotional stream roller, and sullenly chomped the tasteless bite in her mouth. She felt riled up and shaken a little.

With an exasperated huff, Dean got up and left, presumably headed to the bathroom. Sam watched him go, appraisingly, then looked at Alex, watched her silently for a minute. "Hey, so…" he began. She chewed her sausage, looking at him guardedly. He pulled out a bent out of shape bundle of yellow wildflowers from his jacket pocket, and she stopped, mid-chew. "You, uh, forgot something."

Alex stared blankly at the flowers, then at Sam, who shrugged. "Got the feeling you didn't want them left behind," he said. He didn't say anything except that. But there was genuine care and maybe even understanding there. She took the flowers from him slowly, looked at him fully—she was touched deeply by the kind, thoughtful gesture. A soft, hesitant, surprised smile was on her face. "Thanks, Sammy."

He returned the smile, but a guarded sadness remained. Alex looked at the wildflowers pensively, and put them in her jacket pocket before Dean came back. She looked at her twin, wondered if he had any clue what those flowers meant.

* * *

**One Month Later**

**Bobby's House**

"We're about to go in now. If you don't hear from us in the next couple hours, _then_ you come," Dean's voice said in Alex's ear. "I should be there with you guys right _now_," she said sullenly.

"Well, just didn't work out that way, did it?" Dean asked, then didn't give her a chance to reply. "I'll talk to you soon," he said, and she rolled her eyes. "Yeah, fine." They hung up.

This was a _crazy_ idea—stealing the Colt from some kind of super crossroads demon, this Crowley guy. And crazier still that Alex _wasn't there with them_. It almost seemed too convenient how Dean and Sam had gotten the heads up on Crowley's location, how Alex had gotten left behind. And maybe what was harder is that Jo had gone. Ellen and Jo Harvelle had joined them at Bobby's a couple days ago, ready to help take down Lucifer, and they had been happy to have them. It was obvious to Alex that Dean liked Jo a lot, but really, did he have to take Jo in Alex's place? After the whole memory about Dean telling Dad Alex would just slow them down, it added insult to injury to feel replaced, even if it were just for one day.

Dean had just been acting weirder and_ weirder_ ever since Alex got out of the hospital, freaking out over her safety, trying to get her to eat more, losing his temper more and more frequently and with less provocation. He hadn't really been doing the same to Sam, which irritated Alex and made Sam kind of uncomfortable. Sam had even said something to Dean about it in Alex's defense, then gotten verbally bitch slapped.

The thing about it all was they had_ known_ the location on Crowley was coming at any time—Cas had been tracking the demon for the past two weeks. Earlier that very day, Alex and Bobby had gone into town on a supply run, leaving Sam, Dean, Jo, and Ellen behind. When they got back, just Ellen had remained. And then Alex got a call from Dean, saying they were an hour away, that Cas had called with the location of Crowley, that they had been out checking out a lead when they got the call, that they were just going to go ahead and go, they didn't need to drive the hour back. They were just going to go. Without her. Naturally, she'd_ loved_ that. It smelled like a set up to her, which is why she was feeling so crappy right now.

She'd been stuck here all day, useless as Ellen and Bobby spent time shooting the crap as they laughed about days gone by—which kind of upset Alex, who was worrying about demons, angels, her brothers, who were probably going to get themselves killed trying to get the damn Colt. She'd skulked around the house all day, trying to busy herself—fiddling with her shotgun (cleaning it three times), sweeping the kitchen and taking an hour to do it, having spur-of-the-moment target practice with some especially loud crows in the salvage yard, switching on the TV (hating everything on there) trying to reorganize Bobby's pantry. She gave up on that after awhile. Basically, she wasted time all day, her anxiety level creeping up as time went by. Around sunset, she'd gotten the second call from Dean, the 'we're going in,' call—that had been about forty minutes ago. So now, _more waiting_. Alex felt like a caged animal, restless and pissed off. She was pacing the study now, listening idly to Ellen and Bobby in the other room. An abandoned whiskey bottle and a couple of shot glasses were on the desk where she'd left them.

She turned, paced the short length of the study again. If Dean had done that, left her behind on _purpose_, she was seriously going to strangle—she bumped into someone.

Cas's familiar face was in front of her. "Cas," she said in surprise. She hadn't seen him in two weeks. As usual, his sudden appearance caught her off guard.

"Hello Alex," he greeted neutrally, all business. "Your brothers have the Colt and are on their way here. They should be here in about twenty minutes."

"They _got_ it?" Alex asked, relieved but also a little surprised. "Yes. Apparently Crowley just gave it to them," Cas said. "And told them where Lucifer will be tomorrow. It's not far from here." And that's when she saw the signs of suspicion and apprehension on his face, which counteracted the relief she'd felt a second ago. And he sounded very, very grave. She opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, but behind her, she heard a voice.

"Who's your friend, Alex?" Ellen was leaned against the door frame, smiling, a beer in hand. Ellen probably already knew who it was, but Alex humored her, a little impatiently. "Ellen, this is Cas."

"Ah, the angel—heard a lot about you." Ellen walked forward, stuck her hand out for a hand shake. Cas complied, remembering. Alex smiled a little, watching him. "You must have seen my daughter Jo if you were just with Sam and Dean," Ellen said conversationally. Cas looked distracted. "Yes, the blonde one," he said dismissively.

Ellen kind of chuckled at that comment, and Alex could tell she liked him, was fascinated.

"Ellen, get your ass in here! I can't reach the damn top shelf," Bobby complained from the kitchen, and Ellen rolled her eyes in good humor. "I'm comin', old man." Ellen left, and Alex plopped down into one of the chairs at the study desk, motioned for Cas to take a seat opposite her. She leaned forward, speaking lowly. "Okay, Cas, so why would Crowley just give them the gun? And tell them where Lucy's gonna be tomorrow?"

He sat opposite of her, still distracted. "Apparently he wants the devil dead as much as we do," Cas said. "Dean said Crowley claims that if Lucifer succeeds, he will obliterate demons." He paused, dismal. "Well, after he annihilates the human race first, of course."

Alex blinked. "Well." What did you say to that? "Uh, can't let _that_ happen," He glanced at her, sort of grudgingly. She could tell he was thinking, and hard. He seemed so much sadder and heavier than she remembered him ever being before. She didn't like it, and wondered why he seemed so distant, so closed off. Maybe she'd hurt his feelings with the whole crying when he'd presented her with flowers thing. She swallowed, remembering how awkward that had been. The whiskey bottle in front of her was looking better and better. Alex grabbed the bottle decisively.

"You know what? I think we could both use a drink," she said, pouring whiskey into the two shot glasses there. Cas looked at her appraisingly as she pushed a full shot toward him with the tips of her fingers. "It's time for you to try some of the good stuff," she told him, and held her shot glass up in the air. He hesitated, then took the shot glass, did the same, frowning, watching her. She clinked her glass up against his, then demonstrated by lifting it to her lips, throwing her head back, and then slamming it down on the desk. She grimaced as it burned. She motioned to him. "Now you."

Cas didn't look enthused, but he raised the shot glass to his lips and just like she had, threw his head back, downed the amber liquid. His face was pinched and he held the glass there a second, then remembered the last part, and slammed it down, parroting her. He made a disgusted face and Alex bit her bottom lip, trying to hold in a laugh. "It tastes revolting," he stated, and gave her a perplexed look. "Why do you drink this?"

Alex shrugged, pouring them another round. "Makes you forget. Makes you feel better."

"Feel better than what?" he asked, and her amusement, her lightness faded. She looked at him fleetingly. "Than normal, I guess." She raised her shot glass, suddenly feeling a lot less amused than she had a moment ago. "Bottoms up."

He took his shot up in his hand grudgingly, and they downed the shots at the same time. Alex thunked her glass down onto the desk and hissed—it burned really good, and was starting to take effect. Damn, she loved whiskey. "Feel anything?" she asked Cas, who paused, then shook his head. What a damn shame. Maybe he just had a super high tolerance—she looked at the whiskey bottle almost lovingly, then at Cas, wondering something. "Hey, they have whiskey in heaven? Cuz if they don't, I'm not going." She grinned—that was funny. But he took her question seriously, pondering, eyes narrowed. He'd gently set his shot glass down.

"It would depend on the soul. Heaven isn't how the human mind traditionally imagines it. It's not one place. I suppose you could explain it as being a series of heavens. Each soul has its own heaven, a heaven that reflects that person's spirit."

"So heaven's not like some shiny mansion in the clouds?" Alex asked, tilting her head to the side. He seemed offended or perturbed by her question. "No."

"Everyone gets their own?" She surmised, grabbing the bottle of whiskey.

"Yes." He paused, looking at her oddly as she drank straight out of the bottle. "Well. Some souls share a heaven, but that's extremely rare."

She felt her eyebrows raising. "What, like soul mates?"

He glanced at her. "Yes."

She set the bottle down, smiling to herself. "I like that. Always wanted to believe in soul mates." She didn't mean to, but let out an embarrassing little laugh. She realized she was starting to feel a little more tipsy than was probably okay, and shook her head a little, attempting to clear herself. Cas was looking at her uncertainly as she continued asking her questions. "So if heaven is like, a celestial melting pot of tiny heavens… where do _you_ guys hang out? Do you guys get heavens of your own, too?"

His eyes darted to hers, then fell away. "Angels aren't privileged to have personal heavens. We share a communal space, I guess you could say."

Alex felt a prick of interest. Somehow, he sounded like he were talking about an office, not like, a home. Did he think of heaven in that way? "But heaven is home to you, right?"

"Home," he repeated, testing out the word. "I don't think so."

Alex sat back, mildly surprised. "Then where were you before you were here? Before you were in your vessel?"

He looked at her, irritated. "Why are you asking me so many questions?"

Alex blinked at him a couple times, looking off and thinking about it. Then looking back to him and throwing her hands in the air. "Because... I want to know? You know everything about me, right? And I know jack squat about you," she replied after a second, then frowned dramatically. "Come on, Cas, just answer the damn question, _pleeeease_." She heard herself say that and made a face—_shit_ that whiskey had really taken effect fast. "You're being super unfriendly tonight," she said, then wanted to kick herself in the foot.

His frown just deepened a little, then he shrugged lightly, looked away. "It's difficult to explain where I existed before I was in this vessel. Your human mind is too small to grasp these things."

Alex chuckled a little at that—the would-be insult that she was pretty sure was just him being factual. Well, maybe he _was_ trying to insult her. Or dodge the question. Either way, her reply was "try me."

He took a deep breath. He seemed reluctant. "I existed in a transcendent form. Able to traverse time, space. I wasn't really in one place. I was in millions of places. I saw everything."

"Because you were a watcher," Alex said, remembering what he'd told her before.

"Yes," he confirmed.

"For, what… like since the beginning of the world? However many thousand years?" she asked. His eyes again slid to hers briefly. "More or less."

"That's a really long time," she said. _Thank you Captain Obvious_, she thought, struck by how she was sounding stupider and stupider. And then, another thought struck her, and she got quiet a minute. Looked at Cas thoroughly. "You must miss that, huh. The existence you knew before, all those years."

He was silent, but he looked startled by her words. "I think about it sometimes," Alex said. "Well, actually, a lot. How you lost everything you ever knew. For this." She spread her hands out a little. "You get cut off from heaven… have to search for God all on your own… you must feel pretty crappy. Alone." He said nothing, just looked back at her, expression unreadable. Alex searched his face, growing somber. "You look sad sometimes. I think maybe that's why."

She laughed a little, trying to cover up her grim feelings. "And it's all for some lame excuses for humans who have, so far, kind of treated you like crap. Thought the worst of you. Accused you of all kinds of shit." She couldn't keep the laugh up, and her smile faded. "It's you against heaven, hell, and earth. With a little handful of us puny humans on your side." She stopped talking and literally pressed her lips together so much that they disappeared. "Sorry, it's the alcohol. Makes me chatty and entirely too personal."

At that comment, she saw him hide a smile. Pleased with herself, she poured him more whiskey, but none of herself. "Drink up."

He did, and Alex looked at him. "Feel anything?" He shook his head, maybe disappointed. "Nothing."

Alex's stomach suddenly seized up and she leaned forward, grimacing. Cas's frown was wiped off of his face, and he leaned toward her, concerned. Alex moaned, humiliated. "_Uh._ Well, suddenly I'm feeling a little _too much_," she said, standing up, clutching the desk for support. Cas stood up in tandem with her, one of his hands hovering near her arm, as if he expected her to fall down. Alex looked at him, recognizing this expression—the worry. It was the hospital all over again, and she suddenly felt so—oh _God_, her _stomach!_ She stood and brushed past him, throwing a "gimme a second," back his way.

She practically burst out onto the porch, feeling like she was about to be sick. But she was fine after a minute. She felt a little sick, and a little lightheaded, but okay. If she'd looked behind her, she might have seen Cas, through the window, go to Bobby, and point toward the porch.

A minute later, the door opened behind Alex. Bobby, in his wheelchair, rolled out. "You okay, kiddo?"

Embarrassed, she grimaced, looking at him reluctantly. "Eh, yeah. Thought I might puke. Guess I can't hold my liquor like I used to."

"Might be cuz you're skinny as a rail and never eat anything but damn crackers," he said irritably. There was a fondness there, but also disapproval. He looked at her carefully from under the brim of his hat. "S'going on with you?"

She leaned onto the railing, feeling suddenly glum. "End of the world blues, I guess."

"Yeah, that'll do it to ya," Bobby commented. Alex glanced at him sidelong, unable to feel anything but good things when she looked at him. This man, her _quote unquote_ uncle—more like the dad she'd never had—meant so much to her. Especially now that she'd seen him stand up for her in that memory Gabriel showed her. It proved that he cared about her, that he really, really loved her. And she would never, ever doubt that. Maybe she would doubt everyone else in the world, but not Bobby Singer. She remembered their months together when Dean died. Yeah, they'd had their little spats and hadn't exactly gelled immediately—different hunting styles and all that—but he had been there for her completely. Let her live with him, hunt with him. He'd let her lean on him when there was no one else in the world left to depend on. He'd bought those crappy little Hostess Cupcakes for her when she'd been sick with a cold. Handed them to her and muttered "I know you like these, so, uh, here." It made her smile even now to think about.

He'd been there for her when she was a kid, too, more than he really realized. Some of her best memories were with him. Maybe it was because he'd always taken genuine interest in her. When she'd been with him she'd felt like she _mattered_ to him. And that feeling was irreplaceable. She smiled, thinking of her favorite memory. "Do you remember…" she asked aloud, reminiscent, "that time you took me to some kind of stupid princess puppet thing at the library… and we both hated it so much that we left half way through?"

He chuckled, a little embarrassed. "Yeah, I remember. Then you asked to go to the shooting range instead." He had this little smile, just for her, as he said, proudly, "that's my girl."

Alex literally could feel her heart swell in her chest at that. She breathed deeply, maintaining her composure. And after a minute, she looked at him again. She had to let him know—she might never have the chance again. "Uncle Bobby... I've really never told you, but… um, having you in my life has meant everything to me. Some of my favorite memories are right here, in this old house. With you."

He looked at her fully, obviously deeply touched. Then, he shook his head. "Now don't you do that. Don't do this last night on earth speech crap to me, Alex Winchester."

She looked at him fondly, ignoring the command. "You're like a dad to me, Bobby. And Sam and Dean. We wouldn't be anywhere without you."

Eyes shinier than they had been a minute ago, his grizzled face twisted up. "Now you listen to me. I'll kick your ass if you die tomorrow, hear me?" Alex's mouth curved into a lopsided smile as she looked down at him. "Loud and clear, boss."

A familiar sound met their ears, and they turned to see the Impala's headlights cutting through the dark, further down the driveway. "Good," Bobby said, "those idjits are finally back."

Alex watched the car approach, her stomach dropping suddenly. "Do we actually have a chance at this, Bobby?"

"Looks like," he said, but he sounded about as uncertain as she felt.

Sam, Dean, and Jo got out of the car. Jo had been sitting in Alex's seat. Jo grinned at them as she loped up. "We got it," she announced, glancing from Bobby to Alex, looking like she'd won the Olympics. "I heard," Alex replied, looking past her and at Dean, who was purposefully ignoring her gaze.

Bobby was wheeling himself back inside the house, and Jo held the door for him, then went in after. Dean followed them inside, glancing tersely at Alex for the briefest of seconds, but basically ignoring her otherwise. Sam brought up the rear. The door slammed behind Dean and Sam stopped, looked at Alex. "Hey," he said. "Sorry you got left behind. It really wasn't intentional."

She looked at him crankily. "How'd you know I'd think that?"

He grinned crookedly at her. "Come on. Your twin?" He put an arm around her and guided her inside, told her to stop being such a loner. It reminded her of when they were teenagers, and lifted her mood a little.

Inside, Ellen had latched onto Cas in the dining room, and had set up rows of double-shot shot glasses on the table. At Alex and Sam's arrival, Cas looked up at them. "We're playing a drinking game," he told them.

"Ellen, I don't think you're gonna win this one," Alex said. Cas looked at her carefully, which she didn't see, because she was too busy grinning at Ellen.

From the study, Dean's voice bellowed. "Sammy!" Sam frowned a little, let go of Alex, who took a seat next to Ellen. Jo sauntered over to them from the kitchen, a bottle of beer in hand. Ellen picked up a shot glass that was in front of her and drained it, then put it down, upside down, next to four other empty ones. She looked at Cas challengingly, a smile playing on her lips. "All right, big boy," she said.

Cas looked at the woman and then reached for the first shot glass—downed it, set it down, upside down, just like she had—then did the same for the other four in rapid succession. Ellen and Jo looked highly impressed as he did so, and Alex, sitting back, arms crossed, had a crooked little smile on her lips as she watched him with those dark eyes.

He set down the fifth shot glass, and paused, trying to ascertain his level of sobriety. There was a slight tingling sensation in the fingertips of his vessel. "I think I'm starting to feel something," he said, strangely almost excited.

Ellen gawked, then grinned at him. Alex was smiling at him in that way she had where she was pressing her lips closed to keep from grinning. Beside Alex, Jo was pouring a shot and then put it in front of Alex, who shook her head. "Uh, yeah, no more for me. I'm definitely feeling something," she said. She pushed her shot glass at Cas, indicating he drink it, too. He took it, downed it, waited, then shook his head. Alex kind of chuckled. "You'd probably have to drink a whole store I guess."

"Sounds ill-advised," he said. And then he realized she was joking and allowing a smile to cross his face. "Yeah, a trashed angel is all the world needs right now," Jo said, grinning at him widely. "But hey, why not?" She was pouring him more whiskey. Cas looked at Alex, who silently looked at him across the table. He had been away from her, from the Winchesters, for almost two weeks, and at first, when he saw her again, he had been guarded. He still didn't understand what was happening, at all, with her, and with him. The way he always felt so much when they occupied the same space together. It worried him.

Jo set the shot in front of him, said something—he wasn't listening—walked off. He was still looking at Alex, whose gaze followed Jo in half-interest. Dean had come out of the study and followed Jo into the kitchen. Cas watched as Alex looked at them. She was frowning a little, then seemed to drop it mentally, and looked back at him.

She seemed to be all right again, after everything that happened with Gabriel. He had noticed that she had a scar on the palm of her hand where the stitches had healed. A reminder of how powerless he'd been to save her, to protect her. Maybe she was angry about that. There was an odd, niggling sense that he couldn't seem to put his finger on that she was acting differently. Something to do with the flowers he thought, but what? He didn't understand and couldn't identify what had changed, or what he had done. She seemed to grow a little fidgety under his gaze, and she looked away, her expression gone blank, or perhaps tense. In the past month, he'd seen her twice, glancingly. And she'd looked at him with these strange expressions he couldn't quite decipher. They were indescribably uncomfortable, or tense, or pained. Afraid? He wasn't sure. Human expressions were so very subtle and shifting. He had a difficult time piecing together what they meant.

Truthfully, Alex had been on his mind more, and more, and _more_ in the recent months. But especially this past month. Especially since everything that happened with Gabriel. And the fact that she remained in his thoughts was something he thought about, too. Grappled with. In human terms, agonized over. The more time he spent in his vessel and on earth, the more he felt. The less he could clearly remember how it was to be what he had been for two thousand years.

"Right Cas?" Ellen said, laughing. "I'm sorry, what?" he said, looking at her and frowning. She didn't say, just kind of got a strange smile on her face, looked at him oddly. Jo came back, pulled up a chair, leaned on the table and leaned toward Alex. "Your brother is such a loser."

"Which one?" Alex asked.

"Dean, _duh_," Jo said, grinning.

"You _just_ realized this?" Alex asked, and Jo started pouring more shots, handed one to Alex. "Have some more," she coaxed.

"Nah. I've had enough," Alex said. "I'd rather not be hung over on the day we kill the devil."

"Lightweight," Jo said. Alex looked at her sideways, but said nothing.

"Everybody get in here!" Bobby called from inside the study. "It's time for the lineup. Usual suspects in the corner."

Ellen led the way into the study as everyone else shuffled in. "Oh come on, Bobby. Nobody wants their picture taken."

"Hear, hear," Sam agreed.

Bobby was fiddling with an old camera that was set on a tripod. "Shut up," he said. "You're drinking my beer." He rolled his wheelchair back, where everyone was piling in for the photo. "Anyway, I'm gonna need something to remember your sorry asses by."

Alex stood in front of Sam—Ellen on her left. Cas came and stood to her right. Their shoulders just touched.

"Ha!" Ellen guffawed at Bobby's snark. "Always good to have an optimist around."

Beside Alex, Castiel straightened, deadly serious. "Bobby's right. Tomorrow we hunt the devil. This is our last night on earth." Alex looked up at him, mouth hanging open slightly—the camera flashed.

"Well._ That's_ a happy memory," Ellen said sarcastically, and headed back to the dining room where the alcohol was.

Alex was looking up at Cas in trepidation, but could find nothing to say, feeling entirely overwhelmed. She went back outside onto the porch. What, he really believed that? Last night on earth?

She heard the door open and close behind her. "Whatcha doing out here all alone?" Ellen another beer in hand. "Still a loner?" she asked fondly.

"Yeah, I guess I am," Alex said, to which Ellen shook her head, leaned against the porch railing, thoughtful. "Just don't know when you grew up, kiddo. You and Jo both. Happens too damn fast, and here I am just realizing how short life is." She sighed. "'Specially when I think about tomorrow."

"Yeah. This may be the stupidest thing we've ever done, huh?" Alex commented heavily. She hadn't meant it to sound so pessimistic. Ellen nodded slowly, thoughtfully, speaking like she was talking to herself. "Might be. Might _not_. That's the beauty of the gamble." She looked at Alex appraisingly, a little smile crossing her lips. "So that angel buddy of yours. What about him?"

Alex looked at Ellen uncertainty, frowning slightly. "What do you mean?"

"Come on," Ellen nudged, looking slyer by the second. "Don't be coy with me. I saw the way you look at him. And, hell, the way he looks at you."

Alex was flabbergasted, couldn't believe the words that had just come out of the older woman's mouth. "Uh—I don't know what you're—" Alex began, but Ellen was already giving her the 'don't even _try_ lying to me' look, and Alex stopped. Closed her mouth. Gave up, looked down. Not sure how to answer, really. "I dunno. It's... complicated?" Now if _that _didn't sound high school. She fumbled a little, not sure how to explain it. "I didn't even like him at first, at all. I actually kind of hated him. But… I dunno. He's done so much for my family. For me. And I don't know. It's stupid."

Ellen chuckled, took a swig of beer. "You got it bad, girl."

"I do not," Alex said.

Ellen looked at her meaningfully. "Trust me. I recognize the look."

Alex shifted, feeling put on the spot. "And so what if I did? It would never go anywhere."

"And you know that _how_?" Ellen asked, a little on the sarcastic side. "You've decided you already know, when you really have no way of telling. Hell, it's our last night on earth, apparently. No time like the present."

"What are you suggesting?" Alex asked.

"Ask him!" Ellen said simply, then shrugged. "And then, you'll know." Her expression shifted, suddenly suspicious. "Unless you don't _want_ to." She looked at Alex piercingly, her beer forgotten. She seemed to be able to see right through Alex. "You don't think he'd be interested in you?"

Alex dodged the question. "He's an angel."

"So _what_? Do you really think that little of yourself, Alex?" Ellen sounded almost disheartened. "You're a very beautiful girl."

Alex was shocked to hear that. Literally shocked. And Ellen frowned, looking at her intently. "Doesn't anyone ever tell you that?" Alex shook her head, shrugged just barely, feeling awkward. "No."

Ellen sat her beer down and took Alex by the arms, her expression concerned. "_Honey_. You are. You hear me? And not only are you beautiful, you're smart as a whip—clever as hell—tougher than most people I've met—been through more than most people have in their lifetime. You're a damn good hunter and a damn good person. I don't think it's stupid to think an angel could be interested in you. Cuz trust me, that one is."

Alex looked away, trying to cover up her increasing emotions with a soft laugh. Because everything Ellen was saying was appealing to the worst thing she held inside: hope. Alex pulled herself out of Ellen's grasp, looking at the woman pointedly. "You're _drunk_, Ellen."

"After all those shots, I better be," Ellen said, grinning lopsidedly.

Jo suddenly appeared, a huge new bottle of whiskey in her hand. "Mom! I need your help."

Ellen looked at her, eyebrows high. "With?"

"Opening this stupid bottle."

"You serious, Joanna?" Ellen chuckled, and looked at Alex. "We'll talk later," Ellen said, and gave Alex a motherly squeeze on the shoulder. Alex was left alone again, in what should have felt like peaceful solitude. But she just felt more anxious than before, and a little sick. Ellen's words had given her a momentary surge of hope. But it was ridiculous to think what she'd suggested was true, wasn't it? But if this were her last night alive… maybe she should at least consider…

Suddenly, she sensed someone next to her. Cas. His face was relaxed, he wasn't looking at her. He didn't say his usual "Hello, Alex." Instead, he said "here you are." He looked at her at that point, looking perplexed. "Ellen just told me she would snap my wings in half if I ever hurt you."

Alex felt like she might die as Cas continued. "I think she was attempting humor. But such a feat is literally impossible, as my true form is incorporeal." He thought a moment. "I think she has imbibed too much alcohol."

"You say things funny," Alex said, then promptly looked away, mouthed 'wow' to herself—did she really just say that? She chanced a glance back at him—he was now looking out at the junkyard with mild interest. "So, uh, you really think this is our last night on earth?" Alex asked.

He turned his head slightly and looked at her. _God almighty in heaven, he was absolutely gorgeous_, she thought despondently. "Yes. Killing the devil is an insane plan." He was looking away again. "Way to be an optimist, Cas," Alex said, attempting to be light. But his frown just deepened. "There's not much to be optimistic about. Tomorrow is the end."

_Geez_. "So, what are you planning to do with this last night of yours?" She had a sudden, funny thought. "You just gonna sit here quietly?"

She tried to bite back her grin. He looked at her at this point, tilted his head to the side slightly. "You're referring to the last time I thought I was going to die." He didn't seem to share her amusement. "This time is different." A muscle jerked in his jaw, and he looked down, put his hands on the railing of the porch, very serious. "I don't want you to go. It's going to be too dangerous."

Alex's smile had faded and she looked at him unhappily. "Are Dean and Sam going?" she asked bluntly. He looked her way. "Yes—"

"Then _I'm_ going," she said, leaving no room for argument, shrugging as if to say 'too bad.' He didn't look thrilled, in fact, he heaved a little dark sigh. "You are…" he looked away, "very stubborn."

"Yeah, and it's one of the reasons you like me," she said, joking, but then wishing she hadn't said it at all, because he looked at her squarely at that point, finally. Even in the dark, his expression made her go still. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the thought that this might be her last night alive. But it emboldened her a little. She glanced down at where his hand rested on the porch railing. Alex hesitated. Then with a stuttering slowness, reached out, lowered her hand, laid it over Cas's. He looked at their hands, then back at her, and she inched a little closer, curled her fingers around his, her heart beating wildly in her chest. He didn't pull his hand away, he didn't pull_ himself _away, but his eyebrows moved together just slightly. It was now or never—

The door swung open behind them. "Hey Alex, have you seen my—" Sam paused, stopped, looking at them oddly. Alex had literally jumped away from Cas at the sound of the door. "Your what, Sam?" she demanded too loudly.

"My, uh, laptop," he said, eyes narrowed, looking first at her, and then Cas.

"Geez, Sam how would I know that?! What am I, your laptop babysitter?" she exclaimed, and brushed past him, completely mortified. In all fullness of the word, she fled the scene, dashing into the house and down the hallway without looking at anyone. _God_, what had she been_ thinking_? She wanted to disappear completely—hide away—so she went the only place she could think of. Downstairs, into the basement, into the panic room. She couldn't believe herself. For a second, she had intended to kiss Cas. _Kiss_ him. God, Sam interrupting it was the worst thing ever—had he seen her hand on his? The desperation on her face as she leaned close uncertainly? Maybe Sam interrupting was a blessing in disguise, though, because now that she thought about it (the surge of adrenaline and shame had sobered her up, and fast), she was letting herself live in a fantasy world to believe Cas thought that way about her.

Alex paced the dim panic room, rubbing the back of her neck in agitation. She wished she hadn't even tried making a move on Cas, but she also kind of wished she had just gone for the kiss, too. He probably would have gone all stiff, stared at her like she were Satan incarnate. Or maybe he would have melted against her, wrapped his arms around her…

She heard a soft sound behind her and turned to see Cas standing there in the doorway of the panic room, an odd expression on his face, arms hanging at his sides. She went completely still, and realized she was completely cornered—no running away. Cas almost looked like he were breathing heavier than normal, and his head was tilted to the side. The he asked what was possibly the most awkward, mortifying question in the world. "Why did you touch me like that?" he asked.

Alex swallowed. And then lied. "I don't know."

He stepped closer, seeing right through her. "That's not the truth."

Crap, _crap_. Alex felt physically shaky at his approach. "It's not important, okay?" she said, and tried to look pissed. "Go away." He didn't even move. Just gave her a stubborn stare. "No. I will not go away."

Alex looked at him, feeling so defenseless and confused and tired of dodging this. Could she, anymore? She remembered what Ellen had said. Last night on earth. Okay, so, why not. Why _the hell _not. Cards on the table. She swallowed, braced herself. Said it all kind of tersely. Like she were telling him he had cancer. "Okay, fine, Cas. The reason why I, uh—" she couldn't bring herself to say _touched you_. She skipped it. "Is because sometimes, I get the feeling, and think that you, kind of I guess, that you—" she was losing her certainty, "Uh, when you look at me, maybe, you might have, like, I don't know, um..." she closed her eyes a second, felt herself grimacing, literally almost unable to get the words out. "_Feelings_ for me." It sounded so stupid out loud, and she felt her ears burning.

"Feelings?" he asked, as if he didn't understand the implication.

_Oh God_. He was making her spell it out. She looked at him, like, give me a friggin' break! "Seriously?" she begged. Then breathed out deeply, completely unamused, mortified, deadpan. "_Romantic_ feelings." She stared at him, felt like she'd just hiked up a ten mile mountain. He was staring at her blankly. Her heart was sinking. "And you don't, do you?" She asked, softly. So, she had been wrong. Totally wrong. He didn't understand, she'd read into things. He was silent, looking down. Probably inwardly trying to calculate how she had arrived at such a ludicrous conclusion.

Alex wished so badly to disappear, but she was forced to just stand there stupidly, a moron. A stupid, lovesick, moron. Cas looked up, he finally met her eyes, his expression strangely vulnerable, his voice softer than usual. What he said next silenced the noise in her mind. "The truth is… I think about you much more than I should."

Her lungs suddenly felt incapable of functioning, and she felt her mouth open in complete, stunned astonishment. She breathed it out before she could stop herself. "Me too."

At those two words, she saw his eyes flicker up to hers. He looked pained, almost. He closed his eyes for a second, then reopened them. "We _can't_."

Alex was speechless, because it had suddenly all gotten so real, and everything she thought she was kidding herself about, well, it might be true after all. Cas turned, walked away a few feet. For a minute, she thought he was going to walk out, and she panicked. "Why?" she asked, desperate for him to stop.

He stopped, turned slightly. "It's too dangerous. For both of us. But… especially you."

"I don't understand," she protested.

Regretfully, he turned around to face her fully, his whole face tense. He didn't really look at her. "Angels are forbidden to have romantic relationships. Our devotion is solitary. To God alone. And when an angel devotes themselves to anything or anyone other than God…" he trailed off, his frown deepening, his gaze far away. "Horrible things happen."

Alex was shocked. Cas looked grim. "I have to protect you, Alex… even if it's from me."

"Protect me from _you_?"

He looked back at her, halfway, seeing her speechless confusion. "Almost two thousand years ago, an angel named Mariel walked the earth. He fell in love with a human woman named Helen. But Helen rejected Mariel when she saw his true form and nature. He became... unstable. Possessive. Volatile. And in his anger, he destroyed the entire vicinity of Pompeii. The place where Helen lived."

He stopped at that point, and seemed to somehow think that neatly wrapped up everything, explained it all. He turned as if to leave, and Alex again desperately spoke up. "Cas, please—you can't just say all that and leave!" She literally caught him by the shoulder, turned him around to face her, said, "don't walk away!"

"I have to, Alex!" He said, loudly, voice shaking. She froze, wide-eyed. He looked at her, seeming stunned with himself, then shaking his head. "I've—I've said too much already."

"No you haven't!" Alex protested, shaking her head. He _hadn't _said enough—she didn't understand at all, and wasn't sure if he meant that he could—that he felt—dammit! He was being so vague and she couldn't take it. Her chest literally hurt from the emotional trauma. Cas looked apologetic. And then, almost as if he were talking to himself, he let out a soft breath of air. "This was better when you were afraid of me. When you didn't trust me."

Alex was beside herself. "What are you_ talking_ about?"

His eyes snapped back up to hers, no longer soft and yielding, but harsh, and she froze. "I am not the gentle being you believe me to be." He stepped close, intimidatingly, his gaze reminding her of the ones he'd given her when they first met. His voice lowering dangerously, almost snarling. "I could end you, right now, in the blink of an eye. Turn you to dust with a mere _thought._"

Alex shook her head just slightly, but couldn't hide her trepidation. Still, she just raised her chin a little, an action meant to be defiant, tell him she didn't buy it. "You would never do that."

He looked at her pointedly, hard, eyes narrowing, and then with a sudden surge of speed and shocking power, he grabbed her by the back of the neck, as if to hurt her, fingers gripping hard against her scalp, literally holding her there and breathing down on her menacingly. "What makes you so sure of that?" he practically growled, his eyes narrowed and intimidating.

And for a brief second, she almost _was _afraid, not just startled. But as she stared up at him, wide-eyed, she _couldn't_ be afraid. Not afraid that he would hurt her. Because she remembered everything he had ever done for her, and she knew he would never. _Never_. And expression softening, she looked at him unflinchingly. "Because I _know_ you never would," she replied, softly. His expression changed, stilling, and his eyes flickered down to her lips, then back to her eyes. He was breathing harder—he was so close she could feel the warm breath from his mouth hitting her lips. The way he stared into her eyes was unrelenting. Like he was waiting for her to get scared, or pull away. But she didn't. She refused. And God, if this wasn't him threatening her, it could have been the lead in to a kiss, she thought torturously, suddenly filled with overwhelming desire for him, for the touch of his lips on hers.

Castiel stared at Alex, who remained unmoving in his grip. A moment ago, he had been the one in control, using his command, his strength, his words to intimidate and threaten her. But whatever influence he'd had was completely gone. Instead, _he_ felt entirely affected and overwhelmed. He couldn't stop himself from noticing how her hair felt under his fingertips, the sensation of the warm skin of her neck as he grasped it, how her chest rose and fell faster than usual, brushing against the front of him so lightly. Her soft, parted lips, so very close to his. Her wide, dark eyes, looking at him without fear. Just… desire. He felt his expression fade as he realized. _Desire_.

Castiel swallowed, his grip loosening slightly as he tried desperately to ignore the way every cell in his vessel and his mind seemed to be screaming, _begging_ for him to tilt his head down and press his lips against hers. It was wrong, and he knew it was wrong; his inner dialogue was deafening, shouting _you can't do this, this can't happen, it's abominable under Heaven!_ If he knew _nothing else_ in that moment, he knew that every law in the universe forbade this and that he should go—_run_—get as far from _right here_ as physically possible. But it was too late. With every breath he took he could feel the distance between them closing, could see her eyes widening as they searched his. He could hear her heartbeat quickening, and with it feel himself losing ground, his raw desire overriding every failsafe he'd ever had, and in a moment of clarity—or maybe it was a moment of weakness—he gave in, urgently pressing his lips down onto hers, kissing her deeply, as if he had done it a thousand times before.

Even as a surge of pleasure and shock and wonder came over him, the lights above their heads burst, showering them in sparks like flecks of lightning, and Alex's arms were wrapping around his neck, he felt her hands in his hair, fingers curled tightly, sending little zinging sensations all over his vessel. Her body was pressed against his, warm and soft, impossibly overwhelming in the way it made him feel. The hand that had gripped the back of her neck threateningly now grasped sort of desperately, pulling her to him; his other arm had somehow, without him even realizing, wrapped around her waist. He pulled her close, even though he didn't need to—she was clinging onto him, pressing into him full-force, kissing him with everything she had, making him _feel_ so much.

It was like they were breathing each other in, and her _mouth_, her mouth was like the choicest wine, because he was sure that _this_ was what it was like to be drunk—hazy, swept away, and he never wanted it to end. She gripped him so tightly, almost desperately, and it made him feel even more lost, drunk, on fire. The feeling was so electric, so overwhelming, that he wondered, briefly, how he'd ever thought it could be wrong for them to be together, not if it were like _this_. But, in the furthest reaches of his mind, he knew why. And suddenly, he stopped, pulled away, realizing what he was doing—the absolute danger in doing this with her—he looked at Alex in the beginnings of horror.

But then he saw how she looked stunned and close and breathless and_ beautiful _and he again felt helpless, unable to deny what his body and mind wanted—and with even greater urgency than before, he grasped her at the hip and pulled her back to him, kissing her again, passionately, more so than before, shocked at his own behavior and the ease with which this came to him. But he felt like he wasn't even in control of himself at that point. He was desperate for more of her, and unable to reconcile Heaven's laws with his feelings, these sensations, the knowledge that he was embracing _Alex Winchester, _the human being who had somehow become the pinnacle of his thoughts, motivations, and desires. A soft little helpless sound came out of Alex's mouth, startling Cas—and subsequently sending a rush of physical reactions through his entire vessel.

He pulled back, anguished, guilty, once again remembering himself, what this could mean for her, for him, for them. He almost stumbled as he took two steps backwards, horrified at himself, confused, still in the throes of the physical effect she'd had on him. She stood there, breathless, looking small, alone, pained. "I… I shouldn't have done that," he said. And he shouldn't have. A minute ago, he had_ told _her that they couldn't be involved romantically and _why_. And then _he_ had kissed _her_. He remembered what Dean had said, the warning about how his closeness to Alex would be her undoing. Terror shimmered through him, body and mind. _What had he done? _

Alex tried haltingly to move closer to him, but he stepped back, not allowing her to be close—it was too much for him. "That was a mistake," Cas said, forcefully. Rejected, Alex stopped. He looked at her, pained—had he done that? Caused the grief on her face? He had. He struggled, realized how ashamed he was. "I'm sorry," he said slowly, agonized. "I've hurt you."

Her face crumpled, she looked away. And with sudden, intense abhorrence for himself, Cas realized that she was in even more pain than she had been when he'd found her in Gabriel's final hell—and that this time _he was the cause_. He looked down, thinking how if he could take it back—his eyes flicked back up. He could. He could take it back. This whole mess he'd created. The pain on her face. He didn't know what other choice he had. It was the right thing to do. He would remove this memory, make it all fade away for her. She never had to know. He stepped forward, hand outstretched for her forehead, and she stepped back, eyes going wider. "W-what are you doing?"

"Making this right," he said, grasping her by the shoulder. She already seemed to know where he was going with this and tried to pull away, her face crumpling even more. "Cas, _no_."

"I _have_ to," he said. She struggled against him, and he looked at her, sadly. "I am much stronger than you, Alex."

"Please, no, Cas, don't do this," she begged, and he couldn't bear to look at her.

"I'm sorry," he said, and touched his fingers to her head. Her expression went blank, eyes glassy, and she looked at him oddly. "I'm—wait, what was I saying?" she asked, woozy, then went limp, still, silent. Cas gently lowered her to the floor—she would be unconscious all night, he'd made sure of it. A twinge of guilt and darkness ran across his mind—surely this wasn't the best way. Her face was peaceful, smooth. He touched the side of it with the palm of his hand, for a minute, just looking at her. Then he pulled his hand away, as if bitten. He couldn't. If he was going to keep her safe—even from himself—he couldn't allow himself to think of her in that way. Ever. At all.

And yet… he didn't know if he could stop.

He stood up, with every intention of leaving her there in the panic room. The others would assume it was from the drinking, no one would ask questions, really... but Cas stood there, unmoving, unable to walk away, realized that he couldn't bring himself to leave her like that. He crouched again, gathered her up into his arms and carried her upstairs.

* * *

Dean looked up from his laptop to see Alex's limp form being carried by Castiel. Her eyes were closed and she wasn't moving. He almost shoved the laptop onto the floor, he stood up so fast. "Oh my God, what happened?" he demanded, panicked, rushing over—did she fall down? A demon? Some kind of monster?

"She, uh, passed out," Castiel said. "From alcohol."

Dean froze, suddenly embarrassed. "_Oh_." He was kind of glad everyone else had gone to sleep so they hadn't seen that display. Cas was looking at Dean grimly. "Where, uh, should I put her?"

_Really_? "How about a _bed, _genius?" Dean asked—not sure if Cas was hilarious or brain dead.

"A bed. Yes, of course."

Dean stepped into the hallway, adjacent, opened the guest room door, yanked back the blanket on the bed and Castiel, with surprising gentleness, laid Alex down. Dean watched hawkishly as a little stiffly, Cas pulled the blanket back up over her and then stood back. "Is that _sufficient?_" he asked. He sounded almost worried.

Dean looked at Cas sidelong. "That girl could sleep standing up. Don't worry about it." He turned to leave, got to the door, glanced back, and huffed. Castiel just stood there like a dumbass, looking at Alex's sleeping form. Dean looked at him, waited a second. Then cleared his throat. "This is the part where we_ leave_, Cas."

"Oh. Yes," Cas said. "Of course." They left the room and Dean shut the door quietly behind them, then turned to Cas, looking at him hard—the angel was acting extremely weird. "You sure there's nothing going on you want to tell me about?"

Cas looked at him sharply, eyes narrowed. "What would be going on?"

Dean gave him a pointed look. Cas might be thick, but was he really that clueless? "I mean, a friggin' _angel_ takes special interest in my little sister—you better believe I'm gonna make sure it's nothing…" he searched for a word, "inappropriate." Cas's confused expression made Dean roll his eyes, and clarify awkwardly. "Meaning _romantic_, Cas!"

There was a pause, and Dean saw a muscle jump in Cas's cheek. "I don't possess the ability to be involved in that kind of situation," the angel said vaguely, not looking at Dean anymore.

"Meaning what?" Dean demanded, receiving another glare from Cas. "Meaning _stop accusing me of it_," he said darkly, and brushed past Dean, clearly over the exchange.

Dean watched him go, annoyed. "_Dick_."

* * *

**The Next Day**

In the backseat of Ellen's Wagoneer, Alex sat in silence. She glanced at Cas, who was still avoiding her gaze. They had just passed the sign that said _Welcome to Carthage_—they were almost there.

They had been driving most of the day and it was nearing sundown. Most of the way there, Jo had been talking about hunting—the hunts she'd been on, the hunts she'd heard about. Alex had tuned it out mostly, trying to figure out why she felt so friggin' _weird_. She felt really out of it, like hung over, except she was pretty sure she shouldn't be. She hadn't had_ that _much to drink. She couldn't remember, and the details of last night were really fuzzy. She wasn't sure why. There was an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach that stuck like glue.

She thought maybe for a minute she felt off because of the fight she'd had with Dean. They had basically yelled at each other in front of everyone when they left from Bobby's—she'd made to get in the car with Ellen, Dean had pitched a fit about her riding with him and Sam, she'd told him to cram it—so there was that. But that was everyday stuff. Not enough to make her feel so strange.

Ellen glanced back at her in the rearview. "You okay, honey?"

"Fine," Alex said offhandedly. "Just feeling a little off."

Beside her, Cas looked at her sidelong, and she gave him a thin little smile. He looked away, frowning. She felt her smile fade. She _did _remember trying to make a move on him before everything got hazy... so, was he angry? Had she upset him? It would seem so. Everything about his body language and expression seemed tense and disturbed and repelled by her. Alex was disappointed in herself. She couldn't do anything right—first she'd pissed him off with the flowers, then she'd gone and effed everything up yesterday. She looked out the window blankly as they entered the town. Carthage was empty.

"Where _is_ everyone?" Jo asked.

"At least we know we're in the right place," Alex muttered. It was nice and spooky. Her stomach twisted as she hoped against hope that this would work, that it wasn't some kind of horrible trap. Dean and Sam pulled up alongside them, and Ellen rolled down her window to talk to Dean. "Place seem a little empty to you?"

"Yeah. We're gonna go check out the PD," Dean said. "You guys stay here, see if you can find anybody."

"Okay," Ellen confirmed, and the boys drove off as Ellen parked the car. They all got out, except Cas. Jo tapped on Cas's window. "Hey! Ever heard of a door handle?"

Suddenly, Cas was standing outside, beside her. "Of course I have," he said, blasé. He was looking around, an intense look on his face. "What is it, Cas?" Ellen asked, watching him attentively.

"This town's not empty," he said, his tone foreboding. Alex tried looking where he was looking, but saw nothing. "What do you see?" she asked.

"Reapers," he said.

"Reapers?" Ellen repeated. "As in more than one?"

"They only gather like this at times of great catastrophe. Chicago Fire, San Francisco Quake." He paused, frown deepening. "Pompeii." He glanced at Alex, then stepped forward. "Excuse me, I need to find out why they're here." He paused, looked back. Ellen and Jo were looking around, but Alex still stared after him, frowning a little. "Stay together," he said to her. "I'll be back."

And he turned and walked away, weaving through the countless reapers. None of them acknowledged him, they were all standing and facing toward a single point—which was exactly where he headed. They were all gazing up toward a single point on an apartment, or motel building—in the window, a reaper with cloudy white eyes stared back at him… then turned and disappeared.

Castiel followed him, slipping through the distance and up into the building in an instant. He was in a dark hallway, and he could see the reaper at the end of it. He followed him, entering a dark room, intent on finding out why the reapers were here. Then, beside him, he heard a soft voice. "Hello, brother."

The dark room was suddenly lit up in a blaze of light, and Castiel looked down—saw that he stood in a ring of fire. A trap. He had been trapped. He looked up, seeing the other person in the room. "Lucifer," Cas said.

Obscured by shadows, Lucifer walked slowly toward him. "So I take it you're here with the Winchesters."

Castiel felt something jump inside him. He clenched his jaw. "I came alone."

"Loyalty," Lucifer commented mildly. "Such a nice quality to see in this day and age. Castiel, right? Yes, Castiel. I'm told you came here in an automobile."

A little caught off guard by the comment, Castiel narrowed his eyes. "Yes."

"What was that like?" Lucifer asked, further confounding Castiel.

"Um. Slow. Confining."

Lucifer finally came close enough that Castiel could see him. "What a peculiar thing you are," he said, looking at Cas with interest. Castiel, however, was looking at Lucifer's face—there were peeling burns dotting the man's fair face. "What's wrong with your vessel?" Cas asked suspiciously.

"Ah, yes," Lucifer said, chuckling softly. "Um. Nick is wearing a bit thin, I'm afraid. He can't contain me forever, so—" he looked at Castiel meaningfully.

"_You_—" Castiel started, stepping forward, then stopping as he reached the edge of the fire. He was breathing heavily, enraged at what Lucifer was implying. "You will not take Sam Winchester. I won't let you."

Lucifer seemed mildly perplexed. "Castiel. I don't understand why you're fighting me, of all the angels."

Castiel looked at him, glared. "You really have to _ask_?"

Lucifer looked at him openly, appraisingly. "I rebelled, I was cast out. You rebelled, you were cast out. Almost all of heaven wants to see me dead, and if they succeed, guess what? You're their new public enemy number one." Castiel felt himself go still. He hadn't considered that. Lucifer continued. "We're on the same side, like it or not, so why not just serve your own best interests? Which in this case just happen to be mine?"

Castiel lowered his chin. "I'll die first."

Lucifer seemed almost amused by that suggestion. "And why should _you_ need to die?" he asked softly. "Wouldn't it be much more poetic... if it were someone else's life on the line? Someone you cared for more than yourself?"

Castiel felt something in him jump again. Fear. "What—"

Lucifer raised his hand into the air, snapped his fingers once, and Alex was suddenly there, inexplicably. She looked confused, out of breath, and there was _blood_ on her—she caught sight of him even as he realized it was someone _else's _blood.

Castiel strained at the edge of the fire in alarm, as Lucifer smiled at Alex calmly. "Hello, Alexandra."

"How did you bring her here, Lucifer?" Cas demanded lowly, dangerously, his vessel trembling wrathfully. Lucifer smiled ever so slightly as Castiel's voice raised. "How did you _know_ where she _was_?"

Lucifer looked at him, smiling chillingly. "You give me so little credit, Castiel." He circled Alex, who looked so small and vulnerable next to Lucifer. "So, Alexandra, we were just talking about you," the devil said to her. "And forgive me for the thuggish tactics, but—" he produced a pair of handcuffs from behind himself— "I just don't want you to leave quite yet."

Cas's fists clenched, his breath caught as Lucifer grabbed Alex, snapped one end of the cuffs onto her left wrist, threaded the cuff chain around one of the smaller pipes on the wall, snapped the second cuff onto her right wrist, effectively trapping her there. And then, Lucifer gently traced his fingers down Alex's neck—she squirmed, repulsed and scared—the room shook slightly as Castiel stood there in helpless rage. Lucifer's fingers went lower, lower, then grabbed at the sliver of chain there, yanked her lock pick necklace off her neck. She looked shocked that he had known about it—he just smiled, his eyes crinkling up, twinkling as they caught the glow of the holy fire.

"Leave her out of this," Castiel demanded, catching Lucifer's attention once more. "I'm _warning you_."

Lucifer ignored the idle threat, walked the edge of the ring of fire with a slow, measured gait. "Do you know, Castiel, that in order for me to summon death tonight… as part of the ritual… I have to kill all the women in town? And, well, I've killed all of them already. All except three. Jo. Ellen." He paused, looking at Alex. "And this one." He smiled sympathetically even as Castiel glared, enraged, realizing what was happening. Lucifer shrugged mildly. "I'm sad to say, Jo and Ellen will be dead within the hour. However… I can spare Alex. For you, brother. If you agree to help me."

Castiel glowered, his jaw clenched tightly. Across from him, Alex was shaking her head, resigned. "Don't do anything he says, Cas, _don't_."

He looked at her, pained, and Lucifer went to her, put a hand on her shoulder, his thumb stroking over it slowly. She shuddered in revulsion and Castiel swore that if this fire didn't separate him from her—Lucifer smiled at Alex, then touched the side of her face in something like tenderness. He forced her to look at him. She looked like she wanted to spit in his face. "We'll give him some time to think it over, Alex, what do you say?"

Lucifer let go, nodded toward the doorway. "But, Castiel… look."

Cas followed Lucifer's eye line and his expression went cold. Alex saw nothing there. "What is it?" His chin jutted slightly forward in anger. "A reaper."

"Waiting," Lucifer said, and tapped Alex under the chin. "For you." He looked back at Cas. "Midnight," Lucifer said calmly. "Castiel. Make a wise choice. She doesn't need to die."

Castiel glared at him. "You're trying to manipulate me by threatening to murder her if I don't comply."

Lucifer put a hand over his heart, as if he were hurt. "I'm being reasonable, Castiel. Offering you a kindness."

"It's not kindness," Castiel bit back. "You want to burn the world and everyone in it."

"You make me sound so very dreadful," Lucifer said, shaking his head. "You and I? We're on the same side."

"I am _not _on your side," Castiel growled, and Lucifer shrugged, almost rolled his eyes. "That's your choice. You see, unlike God, I don't see the point in forcing anyone to do anything against their will."

He seemed to tire of Castiel, and turned back to Alex, who immediately shrank back. "Alexandra. Why are you looking at me like that? We're going to be _friends_, you and I. You don't need to be afraid of me."

"Oh, okay then," she said acidly. Even though she didn't look it, Cas could tell she was afraid—very afraid.

Lucifer chuckled a little, like she was cute. "So much like your brother Dean. And more like Sam than you think." He sighed, a long, high sound. "Well. That's neither here nor there. Castiel holds your life in his hands right now, and I honestly do hope he chooses to save you."

"You're full of shit," Alex spat, and suddenly, Lucifer grabbed her tightly, shoved her against the wall with a loud thud—she cried out in surprise or maybe in pain. "And _you're_ far too confident," he told her, and smiled, looking back to see Castiel practically fuming at the edge of the ring. "Look. How protective he is of you," Lucifer looked at Castiel out of the corner of his eye, his eyes catching the flickering flames. He looked so pleased. "You've fallen so much further than you're willing to admit, Castiel."

* * *

It was almost midnight, and nothing had happened or changed—Alex was getting frantic. When she'd been separated from Dean, Sam, Ellen and Jo, there were hellhounds after them, and Jo had gotten hurt, pretty bad too, she thought. God almighty, what if they had all been killed by those things?

As if on cue, Meg walked in, and Alex's hatred could have almost blinded her. "I got the Winchesters pinned down," Meg said to Lucifer, pleased with herself. "For now, at least. What should I do with them?"

Lucifer paused. "Leave them alone."

Everyone in the room, even Meg, looked at Lucifer in confusion. "I—I'm sorry, but are you sure? Shouldn't we—" Meg started, but Lucifer just shook his head. "Trust me, child. Everything happens for a reason." He stroked Meg's face, and the demon smiled, leaned into his hand.

"Well, Castiel," Lucifer said. "You have some time. Not much. But a little. Time to change your mind?" He waited. Castiel said nothing, just glared. Lucifer sighed, and made to leave the room.

"Where are you going?" Alex demanded.

Lucifer shrugged. "Things to do. Don't worry. I'll see you again." She was chilled by that statement. Lucifer turned and looked at Cas, spoke softly. "Time's running out, Castiel." He left, and Meg looked at Castiel and then Alex, frowning.

"What, is this some kinda trade? Sam for Alex?" She smiled. "Gotta say, I always liked Sam better. Then again, I was _inside _him."

Alex struggled against the handcuffs. "Screw you." Meg giggled, looked at Alex suggestively, a single eyebrow arching up. "Anytime, sweet cheeks."

She turned her attention to Cas, looked at him with a coy little smile. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure."

"That's not the word I'd use for it," he said, and her face broke into a smile. She laughed heartily.

"Oh, I _like_ you," she said. "But, I gotta ask—you're honestly going to sacrifice yourself for the _Winchesters_?" She gave him a pouty face. "Come on, Clarence. It would be no fun if you missed our party. You're getting a VIP invitation and you're gonna say _no_?"

She turned to Alex. "I mean, isn't that a _crazy_ thing to turn down?" Alex glowered, and Meg made a face. "What, you're not even gonna talk to me anymore? My_ feelings_ are hurt." She swaggered a little closer to Alex, barely able to hold back a grin. "How's the fam doing? Dean looked so surprised to see my hell hounds, didn't he?"

"You _bitch_," Alex growled.

Meg rolled her eyes, that stupid smile never leaving her face. "You know, normally I might resent your tone," she drawled. "But today, I'm in a good mood. I'll let it slide."

Alex stared back unblinkingly. "Oh boy. Gee whiz. Thanks."

Enjoying the control, Meg laughed, threw her head back a little, flexed her neck, then fanned herself with her hand. "Mmmm. Is it me, or is it kind of hot in here?" She laughed at herself, and Alex looked at Cas dismally.

He was looking at her intently, eyes flickering down, then up, down, then up. She realized that he was trying to tell her something. Giving the impression that she wasn't looking at anything at all, Alex let her gaze drop a little. She saw the pipe that her handcuffs were attached to. The screw was moving just slightly. Her eyes flashed back to him, and she saw his hand moving, just slightly. She saw exactly what he was doing, and knew what she had to do. She looked back at Meg, who was still laughing.

Alex demanded her attention, baited her. She needed Meg to be close for this. "Hey ugly, what's so hilarious?"

"We're gonna win. Can you feel it? These cloud-hopping pansies lost the whole damn universe. Lucifer's gonna take over heaven." She grinned at Cas now. "We're going to _heaven_, Clarence."

"Strange, because I heard a different theory from a demon named Crowley," Castiel said. Meg stopped, eyes narrowed. "You don't know Crowley."

"He believes Lucifer is just using demons to achieve an end, and that, once he does, he'll destroy you all."

Meg's smile was gone. Alex egged her on again. "You're cute when you're delusional, Meg."

"Me? Delusional?" she looked at Alex, came a little closer. "I'm not the one with a crush on an angel, sweetheart."

"No, you're the one who thinks the devil's gonna let you live to see daylight once he's used your _pathetic_ skank ass up."

Meg came a little closer still, smiling again, so confident and egomaniacal. "You're _wrong_. Lucifer is the father of my race. My creator." She jerked her head at Cas. "His god is a deadbeat, but mine _walks the earth_."

"Not for long, bitch," Alex said, matching Meg's narcissistic expression, clearly pissing the demon off with that last comment.

Alex heard the screw drop to the floor, a little metallic ping even as Meg was getting in her face, saying "you arrogant, ugly piece of—" Meg would never finish that sentence. Alex reeled back and knocked Meg in the forehead with hers, grabbing the pipe with both hands as she kicked Meg in the stomach—she yanked the loose pipe off the wall in both hands and using it to club the stumbling-backwards Meg across the face. The barrage of unexpected hits knocked the demon back into the ring of fire, and Cas caught Meg roughly, slammed his hand to her forehead—and… nothing. Meg gasped, panting, and then, realized nothing had happened. She laughed. "You can't gank demons, can you? You're cut off from the home office and you ain't got the juice. So what can you do, you impotent sap?"

"I can do _this_," he said, and threw her down across the fire, strode out over her as she screamed. Cas reached for Alex, his hand grabbing her by the wrist. And they were suddenly outside, in the dark, on a road. Next to them, the sign that said _Welcome to Carthage. _

Alex looked at Cas in alarm—he was looking at her breathlessly, demanding her attention. He grabbed the handcuffs, and easily ripped them off—she wasn't sure exactly how—she looked down, surprised to see the twisted metal laying on the ground—he'd done that with his _bare hands_. He was gripping her by both arms.

"Are you all right?" he asked in such distress that she was frightened. "I'm... fine—" she stuttered. He seemed to be only mildly placated. "Do _not_ move—" he said intensely. "I'll be right back." And he disappeared again, leaving Alex blinking, shocked, without anything to do but wait. About a minute passed, where Alex kind of stood there, in shock, in fear. What would Cas find? What if Lucifer found him or hurt him?

She didn't have to wonder for long—Cas was back, Dean and Sam on either side of him. Dean and Sam_ only_. Alex looked at them, shaking her head in dread. "...Ellen and Jo?" she asked. Sam shook his head, looking away, and Dean looked positively wrathful. Alex stared, in shock. "And… the devil?"

"Alive and kicking," Dean said angrily. "The Colt didn't work." Beside herself, Alex looked at her brother. "Are you sure that you—"

"Yes, I'm damn sure!" he shouted. "It didn't work, and he raised Death, and now we're _all new levels _of screwed!"

Sam looked at Castiel, whose face gave away nothing. "Cas? What do we do?"

"What do we do?" He repeated, as if that were a ridiculous question. "What _can_ we do?" he asked bitterly. "It would seem _nothing_. Destiny is unwavering," he said, his voice becoming acidic. "Michael and Lucifer will fight. It's just a matter of when."

"They can't fight if neither of us says _yes_," Sam argued, to which Cas looked at him sharply, anger like Alex had never seen on his face. "You will. _Both_ of you. It's inevitable. Destiny cannot be changed, and we shouldn't try to go against it. It will _always _end in death and destruction." He looked between the three Winchesters, his face etched in harsh lines. "Tonight should prove that to you."

"It proves nothing except we can't kill the Devil with the Colt," Dean retorted. "So we find _another friggin' way_!"

"There_ is _no other way, Dean," Cas said furiously. "You should accept it." Castiel looked at Dean as if in disgust. "Why do you insist on being so shortsighted and stubborn?"

"Because this is my family we're talking about!" Dean shouted. "I am not saying yes, because I refuse to kill Sam or leave Alex behind. You hear me, Cas?" Dean looked at them all, waving an angry arm. "We have lost too many damn people to walk away from this now. I am ending what I started, you all got that?" He looked like he wanted to murder someone. "I gotta go get the car. Stay here, all of you," he said, and turned, began to march down the road, back toward town.

Cas, Sam, and Alex watched him go silently. "He's not even the one who started it all," Sam said after a moment, sounding defeated. "I mean, maybe he broke the first seal. But I'm the one who set Lucifer free."

Castiel's jaw worked oddly, the heated anger fading away into an implacable expression. "And I'm the one who didn't warn you when I could have. I could have stopped it all." Alex tried to search out his gaze, but he wouldn't look at her. "The blame falls to no one person in particular," he said, but he had never sounded more like a liar.

"Are you all right, Cas?" Alex asked, trying to see into him, past his defenses and anger. He glanced at her. "No. Lucifer shouldn't have been able to summon you like that. This requires investigation." She opened her mouth to say something else, but without any warning, he was suddenly gone.

Sam let out an exasperated puff of air. "Why does he always do that?"

She didn't know.

All around them, crickets chirped, as if it were a normal, peaceful night.

* * *

They rode back to Bobby's in complete, dead silence. Depressed, sad, reflecting. Each on their own private hells and torment. All thinking about the loss of Ellen and Jo. Before Dean had come back with the Impala, Sam told Alex about what the women had done, how they had sacrificed themselves for Sam and Dean. She cried then, wept because they had died for nothing—Lucifer was still alive, and the Colt, their only hope, hadn't worked. Sam had held her tight and she'd cried all the tears she had left. And now, she was silent. She felt like if she cried in front of Dean, it would set him off, too. She could tell from looking at him how hard he was taking it. How much he didn't want to face it. And it was heartwrenching.

When they got back to Bobby's, Dean got out of the car wordlessly and walked off a ways, into the salvage yard. Sam hung back, then shook his head, went inside, probably to tell Bobby the news. Alex hesitated, then followed Dean, not sure if she should or not, if he needed to be alone or what.

He had his hands in his jacket pockets, facing away from her. She came to his side slowly. "You okay?" It was a stupid, ridiculous question. Dean overlooked that though, just looked down, his face etched in sadness. "All these people we love keep dying, Alex, and I keep thinking… is it my fault? Did I cause this somehow?" He looked at her then, grimacing, and then looked straight ahead. "I'm a joke, Alex. I can't protect anyone. I always think I can." He seemed so hollow as he repeated himself. "_I always think I can._"

He was tiredly rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand now. "I couldn't keep the two of them alive—I couldn't keep Lucifer from digging his talons into you—I don't think I can protect Sam from his future. From Detroit. I'm losing everyone and I'm starting to _get _that I can't do a damn thing about any of it." He dropped his hand, expression blank. "Maybe I should stop trying."

Alex crossed her arms, rounded on him, putting herself in front of him. "Dean Winchester. Look at me and shut up." He did. His eyes shone with tears. "Don't you _dare _give up on this," Alex said fiercely. "You can keep blaming yourself, or you can accept that you don't control life. You _don't_. And I know it hurts like hell. But don't you dare let their deaths be in vain. We are _not _giving up on this. We are not letting Lucifer get what he wants."

He looked down, his voice passionless. "I'm tired, Al. I'm tired."

"We _all_ are," she said softly, not really knowing what else to say. He wet his lips, a self-deprecating smile on his face, that faded into grief once more. He struggled a minute, vulnerable. "And, the crazy things is… I thought… in the back of my mind… Jo and me, someday… maybe..." he trailed off. There was very rare, real emotion in his voice, and she saw a tear run down his cheek, the moonlight glinting off of the streak left behind. And it completely broke her already aching heart.

Alex slid her arms through his, thinking of an angel who she felt the very same way about—_someday_… _maybe_… but probably not. She understood it so well. Dean kept his hands in his pockets, not really accepting her gesture of affection in any way except leaning his head sideways slightly against hers. He was trying to hold himself together—she could feel him struggling to breathe normally, against the threat of tears. They just stayed there like that awhile, silent, each unwilling to break down.

Dean pulled away finally, muttered something about going inside, avoiding her gaze. Alex was left alone, to watch her big brother walk away. She suddenly thought how cold it was that night, and how she hadn't noticed until right then.

* * *

**Later That Night**

Alex walked by moonlight down the main road, watching the yellow lines under her feet as she went. It was late enough that she didn't even have to worry about traffic. Not a single car had passed so far, and she'd been walking for awhile, maybe thirty minutes. She was lost in her thoughts and trying to forget everything, trying to clear her mind. After following Dean inside of Bobby's house, she'd quickly realized she just _couldn't be there_, not right then; that that she needed to get out of there. She was probably a mile from Bobby's by now, but she kept walking, one foot in front of the other. Staying in motion helped her forget, just a little bit.

But she couldn't run from what was inside. She was conflicted, grieved, and hollow. She stopped and listened to the sound of silence. Everything that had happened tonight discouraged and wrecked her. The Colt failing to kill Lucifer had been like a punch in the gut. That had been their single hope. If_ it _couldn't kill him, what, if anything besides Michael, could?

Her mind turned to Ellen and Jo, and Alex closed her eyes tightly for a second. Alex had lost count of how many friends had died in her lifetime, but she had never imagined having to add the Harvelles to that tally. It was another reminder that hunters pretty much always met bloody ends, violent deaths. And if she were honest, she felt her end approaching, too. That was the one certainty of this life—that death could come any day, and probably would.

There was a soft sound to her right. "Miss Winchester," came a pleasant, accented voice. Alex whirled, startled and on guard, to see a dark-haired man in an all-black suit. He was sauntering toward her slowly, smiling pleasantly. "Out for a walk awful late aren't you, love?" He stopped a couple steps away, looked at her meaningfully. "Could be dangerous for a young lady to be traipsing about after dark, don't you think?"

"And who the hell are you supposed to be?" Alex demanded, looking him up and down, her hand hovering over her back pocket where her hunting knife was sheathed.

"Name's Crowley," the man said silkily. Alex's face dropped, and he nodded, as if he weren't surprised. "Right-o. I see you've heard of me." He lowered his chin, looking at her slyly. "Have to say I was disappointed when you didn't come along for the meet n' greet with your brothers."

Great, this was just awesome—a mile from Bobby's, no weapon to use against a demon, no one nearby to help—still, none of it stopped her from mouthing off. "Screw off or I'll kill you."

He sighed, seeming disappointed with her. "You lot are so predictable." He took in her expression and his face screwed up. "Oh stop looking at me like that, would you? I'm not the _enemy_ here, Alex."

At that comment, she raised her eyebrows, matching his attitude blow for blow. "Uh, you know who I am, right? I'm a Winchester. The simple fact that you're a _demon_ makes you my enemy."

He rolled his eyes. "Right. Well. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Or some tripe like that."

Alex crossed her arms, not taking her mistrustful eyes off of him for a second. "Yeah, my brothers told me all about how you want Lucifer dead. But that doesn't exactly make us buddies."

"No, I suppose it doesn't," he said, chuckling softly, then without any notice, he flew into a fit of rage. "Especially since they couldn't hold up their end of my _friggin' deal_!" Alex had kind of leaned back when he blasted off, and he stopped, pressed his mouth closed, and when he spoke again, it was calm, pleasant. "I gave them the Colt to kill the Devil. Look where that's gotten me."

"News travels fast," Alex commented suspiciously, not sure how he could know that so soon.

"Indeed. And since your blithering _idiot _brothers couldn't kill the devil today… I'm forced to get desperate."

"I'm waiting for the punch line," Alex said mistrustfully, to which Crowley chuckled, looked down at the ground briefly, then back at her. "You _are_ a pet, aren't you?" His amusement faded into semi-seriousness. "The punch line. Well. There are _rumors_." His eyebrows raised briefly. "That _you_, my dear, have a part to play in this thing."

Her eyes narrowed. "What the hell do you mean?"

He sauntered a little closer. "Word on the grapevine is that _you're_ the one who'll kill Lucy."

The air left Alex's lungs. "_What_?"

"Yes, I _know_," Crowley said dramatically. "Didn't believe it at first myself, thought it was absolute bollocks, but now that your oaf brothers have gone and mucked it all up—well, I'm starting to consider the validity of what I've heard."

"_Dean _is Michael's vessel," Alex said emphatically, her mind spinning. "Not me."

"Never said anything about Michael though, did I?" Crowley asked, smiling mysteriously. "Think about it a tic, darling. You're a Winchester. Your blood line ties you to this whole situation by association. _How_ remains to be seen. But I'm going to find out." He stepped a little closer still, eyes narrowing a little. "Because I know you want Lucifer dead just as much as I do."

She stared at him, pretty freaked out overall, not sure if he were trying to screw with her or what. He seemed entirely amused by her confusion, his eyes crinkling up in another smile. "Ah, me, look at the time," he said. "Things to do. Places to be. Hell to raise." But then, his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at her, suddenly intent. "Hmm. Interesting."

"What?" Alex asked suspiciously, not liking the look on his face.

The smile was back, sly this time, knowing. "That angel on your shoulder? He's a _tricky_ little devil…" he chuckled lowly, looking at her as he knew something she didn't. Then with no fanfare, he raised his hand up beside his head and moved his fingers up and down twice, waving. "Laters."

In a single blink, Crowley was gone, leaving her absolutely reeling from the exchange. Unsure what to think, or if he were really gone. For a second, she wanted to open her mouth and call Cas. She almost did. And then she shut her mouth, decided not to.

Because something deep inside was telling her she shouldn't share what Crowley told her. With anyone. Not yet, anyway.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ And so concludes an all-star chapter of SRS! It was sort of daunting to write SO MANY GREAT GUEST CHARACTERS in one place, but I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out. What did you guys think of all the conversations, all the Calex?!_

_Writing this chapter, I literally cried a couple times, mostly in the kiss/mind erase scene. *sob* HUGE thank you to my friend Jess for helping me write the kiss scene—she gave me the gold that was Cas's thoughts during the lead up… dflkjgldfkjgdflgjk. I OWE YOU FOREVER JESS. _

_So what's ahead in chapter 23? Well. Spoiler alert… we're going back to 2014, in a way… *cackles evilly*. And we will be seeing a __**lot**__ more of it. GET EXCITED AND SCARED CUZ IT WILL HURT SO GOOD. _

_I want to thank every single reviewer. Whether you leave me a 20 word review or a 200 review, I appreciate every single one. All of the support and encouragement mean the WORLD to me and I am loving journeying this story with you guys :D anyway I am brain dead and signing off. Happy Monday!_

_PS SORRY THIS CHAPTER WAS A MILLION YEARS LONG. I am having a contest with myself to see if every chapter I write can be longer than the one before it. So far I'm winning. lol_


	23. Be All My Sins Remembered

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 23 / Be All My Sins Remembered

_"Forward's the only way to go."_  
- Belle and Sebastian

* * *

In every direction the arctic tundra stretched, pristine, untouched. Snowy white mountains marched along the horizon, rising up from icy plateaus—frozen oceans. The sun shone down from a crystal blue sky, onto a solitary figure wearing a trench coat.

Castiel breathed in the sharp, icy air, his eyes scanning the distance. It had been two days since everything happened at Carthage.

There was no logical reason for him to be here. And yet there he stood, in a vast, empty wilderness of ice and snow, removed from any trace of humanity. Currently, he couldn't bear the sight of people. They all reminded him of her. And of what he had done to her.

Never before had his mind been such a disaster of overwhelming, chaotic thoughts. There was regret—confusion—guilt. And there was a deep seated fear because of what Lucifer had been able to do with Alex; how helpless Castiel had been to defend her—how weak and ineffective and unprepared he had been for what had happened. Had Azazel done something to Alex that night in the nursery? Had Castiel overlooked some mark, some sort of tracking charm or blood spell? Or was Lucifer far more powerful than he'd thought? How had the devil known what Alex meant to Castiel? He could still see Lucifer's hand touching Alex's face as if in tenderness. The memory inspired rage inside of him.

It was easier to face the rage than the other things: the shame and horror, the creeping suspicion that he had done the wrong thing, the self-hatred for his momentary lapse in control.

A simple touch of her hand on his had set in motion a series of actions that Castiel couldn't quite explain. It had only been her hand gently resting on top of his. Anna had touched him that way, once. But it hadn't been the same, not at all. There had been much more meaning and revelation behind Alex's little hand coming to rest atop his. The instant their skin brushed, her fingers curling in between his, hesitantly—he'd been suddenly aware that maybe he wasn't the only one who had these indescribable, confusing feelings. Her hand, her eyes, they had fleetingly confirmed the hope he'd buried deep down. And then she had run away and he'd had to follow, _had to know_ why she'd done that, needed to hear it from her—why she had touched his hand like that.

It was easy _now_—not in the panic room, not with Alex who had been so warm and small and close—to tell himself he had been weak and foolish. To tell himself he _should have been able _to physically walk away, that he shouldn't have even followed her in the first place. But he remembered, clearly, how impossible that had been. His body, his mind, his every impulse and function had failed him; had pushed him forward, into her arms, where he had given a kiss that he never should have even thought about, much less participated in. He cursed himself for not having the willpower or the strength to stop it from happening, even as, at the same time, he desired a thousand more moments like it.

All of the jumbled thoughts in his mind were overpowered by the memory of Alex's face when he had forcefully taken her memory. The sheer horror and fear when she pleaded with him not to take it away haunted him. _Haunted him. _Tore at him inside. _He had done that to her. _No one else. Him—the one who had made her whole, restored her voice, was supposed to protect and guard her. He had taken something from her, intruded on and manipulated her mind. It wasn't his right, and he realized that now, but what other choice did he have? Let her remember? He'd said too much, revealed too much. _Done_ too much. Endangered her. He almost wished he could erase it all from _his _memory, because he remembered, in torturous detail, every second, every _millisecond_ of what happened in the panic room. The way she'd looked at him, asked him, tripping over her words, if he felt things for her… how she'd embraced him, kissed him in a way that made him feel physically weak, then begged him _please no, don't..._

A cold breeze whistled across the surface of the frozen ocean he stood on, stinging the skin of his vessel, whipping his trench coat around his legs furiously. How could he have done that? Any of that? A few months ago he never would have imagined himself capable of any of the recent things he'd done, said, felt. His selfish desire for answers and closeness had caused the entire mess and he hadn't known any other way to fix it except to take the memory from her entirely.

Even if she wouldn't remember it…. _he_ would always carry the moment with him and be left wondering what it all even meant: the consuming nature of his thoughts toward her, the way he wanted physical closeness, the anxiety that seemed to pit itself in his stomach when he didn't know where she was. He wondered, briefly, unintentionally: What if he hadn't taken the memory from her? What would have happened with them? She had asked if he had feelings for her. He had essentially said yes. And when she had said she felt the same—it had ignited something that still remained, smoldering deep within. The way she'd looked at him, full of desire and need was comparable to nothing else he had ever experienced or seen on earth or in heaven.

He almost physically shook himself at where these thoughts were going. These were dangerous musings. It was impossible. Not only were angel human relationships forbidden, but Lucifer had already shown Castiel that his worst fear was true. Alex would be used against him, because of how much he cared for her. Any perspective he took, he saw himself as a danger to her. The best way to give her safety was to stay far away. He disliked the thought very much. He couldn't leave her completely. Not now. Probably not ever. But especially not right now, not when her brothers were being hounded by Heaven and Hell, not while Lucifer seemed to have his sights set on her. Not now.

He found himself remembering the first time he'd seen Alex. October, 2007. She was sitting on the ground, boots off, shaking bits of dead grass out of them—hair a mess, something or someone else's blood on her—shirt a little ripped, some scratches on her arms. Sam and Dean were nearby, packing weapons back into the Impala. They looked rough, too, but Castiel didn't remember the details of their appearance. He had been attentive to her, not them. Alex looked at her brothers with those large, watchful eyes, and Castiel saw her sadness as clearly as he could see her slouching shoulders, the arch of her long neck, the shiny silver whistle strung around that neck. Dean had called to her, and silently, she had gone to stand with her brothers, who fussed over her scratches. She looked so small next to them, so young and fragile. Castiel hadn't understood why he was ordered to protect her, but hadn't needed to. He saw her, and knew he was meant to be her guardian.

A handful of weeks later, after watching her pain and her silence, knowing he had the power to change it and wanting to, deeply—he simply had. There had been no other choice in his mind. But that time, it had been the right choice, not without consequences or hardship, but the _right choice_. He didn't question it, not then and not now. That had been before his vessel. That was the place where the questions began.

His vessel and the constant call of emotions that came with it complicated everything, made him unsure of himself and seemingly incapable of reasoning with any semblance of clarity. Everything was muddled and distorted, skewed by the curse of feelings. The longer he was here, walking earth in the body of a man, the more intensely he _felt_. He wasn't sure that he wanted to feel it. Any of it. And yet he did. He seemed to have no choice in the matter; there seemed no other path for him than the one he was on.

Drawing a deep breath, Cas looked around the snowy world that surrounded him, reflecting on the past two days which he had spent trying to uncover how Lucifer had summoned Alex with a mere snap of his fingers. The Enochian warding symbols on Alex's ribs—placed by Castiel himself—should have prevented Lucifer from knowing her location. But so far, Cas had learned nothing. He didn't know why. And the thought that the devil could, at any moment, lay hands on Alex while Cas remained blind to her location—disturbed him on the deepest levels imaginable.

His search for God; fruitless. His search for answers about Lucifer; thus far unsuccessful. He was discouraged and alone; feeling the absence of Alex in every way; in need of answers and possessing none; wishing for an escape from the constant noise in his mind, but finding quiet nowhere. Not even here, in a frozen wasteland, away from everyone and everything.

* * *

**Two Weeks Later**

**Ketchum, Oklahoma**

_Legend says a pure soul can destroy evil from the inside. _Alex sat back from where she'd been hunched over Sam's laptop and rubbed an eye with the heel of her palm. She'd been on the internet for way too long. A bunch of the the more "mainstream" religions and mythologies had similar statements about a pure soul being able to destroy evil from within—that was the one recurring theme Alex was finding as she tried, kind of failing miserably, to find something, _anything_, to dispel or confirm what Crowley had told her. Whenever Sam and Dean were distracted or gone, she'd pull out the laptop and read everything she could on Lucifer—but she had yet to find a website that actually talked about literally killing him and/or how. She needed to get to some of Bobby's books, because the vague stuff she was finding on the web was not cutting it.

_Word on the grapevine is that __**you're**__ the one who'll kill Lucy._

Crowley's ominous words filled Alex's every waking moment. She didn't trust Crowley, or_ any _demon for that matter, but what the hell was she supposed to make of the claim? She went back and forth between believing Crowley was just screwing around with her to wondering if he were being truthful. Where would such a rumor have even come from? And what kind of truth was there to it? It made no sense to Alex, who so far, had been ignored by demons and angels alike. Everyone was after Dean and Sam, and Alex had been an afterthought (or forgotten completely). But maybe that was the whole point. Maybe they were distractions. But from _what_? Alex was driving herself crazy with questions and theories. She hadn't mentioned it to a soul, and didn't plan on it, in case Crowley was trying to get to her or mess with her family. She'd figure it out on her own and go from there. And besides—she had a feeling she hadn't seen the last of Crowley. And next time, she'd be ready for him.

Staring unseeingly at the laptop screen, which was currently switching to screen saver, Alex listened to the ringing silence of the motel room. She kind of wished, for a minute, that she hadn't wimped out about going along on the current hunt. If she'd gone along, she wouldn't be so restless and, well, bored. Sam and Dean had both been fine with her staying behind—_too_ fine. But she also _really _hadn't wanted to along, not this time. Checking into a mental ward—and even if it were to go undercover—nope. Not happening. Ever.

So, she remained behind, alone.

It had been two weeks already since Carthage. Dean hadn't quite been himself since. Well, had any of them? They had really thought the Colt would work. They were all the way back at square one with no clue how to kill the devil—or if it were even possible. Cas had seemed to think it wasn't possible from the beginning. Maybe he had been right.

A twinge of dysphoria ran through her veins at the thought of him. Cas hadn't shown up since Carthage—after he disappeared abruptly, upset and riled. She remembered the mangled silver handcuffs he'd ripped off of her wrists, glinting up at her from the ground. It was strange, but _that_ had disturbed her the most of everything that had happened that night. How clearly shaken and freaked out he'd been, as well as the reminder of how physically powerful he was. Sometimes, she forgot he was that strong and capable. And yet, as commanding as he was, his alarmed behavior followed by his disappearance and subsequent silence worried her. Where had he gone? Was he okay?

Alex knew he'd called Dean a couple times to check in, but that was it, nothing else, and it almost felt like avoidance. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong there, but she wasn't sure what. His absence was noticeable. Sometimes she looked up, expecting he'd be there. But he wasn't. Alex leaned her elbows onto the table, put her head in her hands, scrubbing her palms across her face. She was so very tired, as usual. But more in her mind than her body. There was too much to carry. Ellen and Jo, dead, sacrificing their lives for a whole lot of nothing. Dean, withdrawing and holding her at arm's length, treating her like she was a child. Sam, hesitant and guilty and avoiding her. Cas, gone and silent and upset with her, she was pretty sure. Crowley's cryptic message, the idea that she might somehow play a role in this whole Apocalypse thing. It was all _so much_. And she shouldered it alone. She took her face out of her hands, absently twisted Dad's wedding band around her index finger. She wasn't really even sure why she still wore it, except habit.

There was a soft sound in front of her, and she looked up, accidentally knocking a book off the edge of the table when she saw Cas standing there, a grim expression on his face. "I can't find out why Lucifer was able to summon you like that," he announced without any dalliance whatsoever.

Surprised to see him, it took her a couple seconds to respond. "Uh, nice to see you too, Cas," she said as she shut the laptop discreetly, stood up, feeling a little flustered. Then, frowning, she wondered aloud, "wait—how'd you know where I was?"

He glanced at her, sidelong, seeming troubled, his face hard with a stern frown. "I called Sam and he told me," Cas replied, distracted, on edge. "That's beside the point. Lucifer should not have been able to do what he did—the warding sigil I put in place—I haven't been able to learn why… or _how_ he was able to do that."

"It's okay, Cas," Alex said, looking at him, a little worried. "Just, uh, calm down," she told him, and she got another one of those hooded glances. He seemed shaken up and confounded, definitely not himself. His weird behavior was disconcerting. He looked around the room intently. "Why are you here alone?" he asked.

Alex shrugged, a little ashamed, and trying not to show it. "The job my brothers are doing isn't exactly my... cup of tea."

Cas looked at her, expression twisting up in confusion. "What do beverages have to do with it?"

A smile popped onto Alex's face at his question and she tried to hide it. He really had no clue how funny he was, which made it even funnier. She cleared her throat, trying to concentrate on answering his question. "They're, uh, hunting some kind of monster at a mental hospital here in town. Old hunting friend of Dad's is in there, Dean figured he owed the guy. But I, uh, don't do crazy houses." Cas's eyes narrowed just slightly as he looked at her half way. "A _visit,_ I mean, yeah, okay. But being committed—not happening."

Cas, still distracted, made no response. He went to the motel room window and looked out, scowling. "You shouldn't be left alone right now," he said grimly. His blue eyes flickered over to hers briefly. "It's too dangerous."

Maybe he meant well, but the comment snapped something inside her. "Cas—I know you're my guardian angel or whatever, but I don't appreciate your implication." She stared at him hard. "I'm _not _helpless. I can defend myself and take care of myself."

He looked at her, eyebrows knit together, turned a little toward her. "Like you took care of yourself when Lucifer summoned you?"

Alex felt her eyebrows raise in surprise at his comment, and before she could stop herself, she was slinging an insult back. "Yeah and _you_ were a big help stuck in your little fire circle, weren't you Castiel?" He was visibly hurt by her retort, and Alex regretted her word choice and tone immediately. Her gaze faltered away from him, and she felt herself fumbling for words, for some kind of apology. "Sorry. I'm... just frustrated right now."

And that was the truth. She was so, so frustrated. No matter what she did, she felt weaker every day than the last. She used to fight hard, fear nothing. But these days, she ran from everything, lived in fear of the future, in fear that everything she did was in vain. Dean was treating her like she was a fragile china doll, Cas insisted that everything was too dangerous for her. She felt smothered and ineffective. She wanted to matter. But maybe Gabriel had been right, that she had no role, that she was only a victim. She looked at Cas silently.

Cas took a deep breath, came away from the window but stayed back, further than usual, looked at Alex hesitantly. "I know that you are not, as you say, helpless," he said somberly. His eyes fell away from hers. "But there are bigger enemies after you than before."

Alex looked at him bleakly, nodding ever so slightly, feeling defeated, sighing heavily. "I get it Cas," she said. "You're just looking out for me."

Again his eyes darted to hers. "Yes." His jaw clenched tightly. "It's not like before, when I knew where you were at all times. You're hidden from angels. From me." His eyes focused on some distant point to his right. Alex could almost see how agonized he was at this point. "But not from Lucifer…" he trailed off. Cas looked at her now, strangely. Alex swallowed, looking at him, worried again. She knew the whole Lucifer thing was bothering him, but there was_ something else_. She knew it. "What _is_ it, Cas? Something else is wrong with you."

"I'm functioning fine," he replied darkly, not looking at her again. "You sure?" Alex asked, stepping a little closer, trying to read him, see through him. The second she did that, his eyes snapped to her, his expression seemed to chill over. Alex froze—he looked like he wanted her to get away from him, and she didn't understand. "Did I... do something?" she asked softly, fearing the answer. But Castiel, eyes now going back and forth over the floor in front of her feet, shook his head just once, his voice deep and disturbed. "No, of course not," he replied, almost mumbling. "I—I have to go."

And he vanished without warning, leaving Alex stunned, mouth hanging open, staring at where he'd been. What the hell? Why was he acting like this? Did she really disturb him that much? Did he really hate her touch that much? Because he'd been acting strangely toward her ever since she'd tried to put a move on him the night before Carthage.

It had only been the touch of a hand and the intention of a kiss—but apparently that was enough to completely repulse him. That was the only explanation she could think of. Well, he had been acting a little oddly toward her before that, too, hadn't he? Alex felt such a deep sense of embarrassment and humiliation, thinking of herself and how idealistic and shortsighted she'd been. She had believed, for a while, like a damn lovesick high schooler, that Cas was interested in her. That the way he looked at her was because—she stopped the thought right there. This was ridiculous. _She _was ridiculous.

She sat down on one of the beds, feeling hollow and foolish. The motel room seemed emptier than it had before. She hated herself for the tears that began to well up in her eyes, and in a fit of rage she grabbed the lamp off the bedside table, ripping it clean out of the wall, cord and everything. She threw it at the opposite wall where it shattered. She buried her face in her palms, quiet crying sounds slipping out from behind her hands.

Invisible to her, Castiel remained, watching Alex, his face a mask of torment.

* * *

**A Week Later**

"Wake up. Alex!" Dean's voice was really loud and right in her ear as she became aware that she was being shaken roughly. She tried shoving him away, but he just yanked her up by the shoulder—if that wasn't a rude awakening, she wasn't sure what was. Awake but barely, she glared at Dean, saw that Sam was awake, too, and looking equally enthused. "Dammit, Dean," Alex moaned. "This is the first time I've gotten to sleep in two days and you wake me up in the middle of the damn night?"

Dean was ignoring her and jerking his jacket on. "Anna just came to me in a dream and said we got to meet her ASAP."

Alex stopped mid eye-rub, suddenly awake and suspicious. "Wait—whoa—Anna?"

"We shouldn't just drop everything and go, Dean," Sam put in tiredly, running a hand through his messy bed head hair. "Could be some kind of trap."

Dean seemed to think that suggestion was ridiculous. "A _trap_? Come on, Sam. This is Anna."

"Who we haven't seen or heard from since she exploded into a bunch of light, _months_ ago, remember?" Alex reminded him, and stood up, wishing she were still asleep, too tired to talk sense into her brother, but left with no other option. "Dean these are crazy times. I mean two days ago Sam swapped bodies with a teenager who was gonna hand him over to Lucifer—and we find out demons have a bounty out on_ your _head… I'm just saying maybe we should be careful. We didn't even really _know _Anna."

Dean looked at his sister unhappily. "Speak for yourself," he said cryptically, getting a confused look in return.

"Alex is right, we need a second opinion on this," Sam said, pulling out his phone, the blue glow lighting his tired face as he began scrolling through his contacts. "I'm calling Cas."

Dean snatched the phone from Sam. "No, you're _not_," Dean said, ignoring Sam's bitchface and wagging the phone at him. "I don't need him raining on my parade."

Sam grabbed for his phone. "Give me—" he growled, "the phone!" Alex watched her apparently five-year-old brothers fighting over the phone. She didn't have time for this stupidity. She sighed, resigning, bracing herself. She looked at the ceiling. "Hey Cas, can you, uh, get over here?" Alex asked out loud, drawing strange looks from Sam and Dean.

"Hello," Cas said, suddenly in the middle of the room. Even though she'd called him, Alex was a little surprised he'd come, honestly. She looked at him briefly, then when his eyes met hers, she looked away immediately.

"You can _do_ that?" Sam asked Alex, kind of awed, then in quick succession, frowning. "Why didn't I know this? And give me _that_." He swiped the phone back from his brother.

"Need to know basis," Dean grumbled, then turned on Cas. "Sorry, wrong number," he said sarcastically. "You can go."

"_No_—" Sam said a little forcefully, giving Dean a surprisingly assertive stare. "Dean—tell Cas what you told us."

Castiel waited, listening, his expression somber and focused.

There was a very agitated huff. "_Fine_," Dean said, and looked at Cas, went over to him. "_Anna_ came to for a visit in la la land. Said she needs our help right away. That she's been in prison this whole time. Oh. And that _you're_ the one who got her put in there."

Alex and Sam, who stood back a little further, looked at Cas in unison. The angel's eyes had narrowed just slightly as he looked at Dean. "That's true, yes..."

"You wanna explain _why_?" Dean demanded gruffly.

Castiel paused a moment. "I thought it was the right thing to do, at the time. Now I realize that it was a mistake." He was frowning, thinking. "This news is troubling." He looked at Dean, the frown deepening. "No one escapes heaven. No one. You will not go and meet her."

Eyebrows raising, Dean crossed his arms. "Oh, and _you're_ gonna stop me?" he asked, looking like he was ready to fight. Castiel responded by stepping closer. "If I must." Dean's expression showed surprise as Cas leveled him with an unflinching stare. "Dean, if she's here, if she's escaped heaven, it's because she was _sent_." Cas paused. "She is not to be trusted."

"This is _Anna _we're talking about," Dean protested.

"Who we knew for a few days when she was _human_," Alex reminded him. "She's been upstairs an awful long time, Dean." Both Cas and Dean looked at her in unison, and she had to force herself to not look at Cas.

Dean didn't look like he liked the implication, but looked at Sam as if for a second opinion. Alex finally looked at Cas then, unable to stop herself. His guarded, intent gaze was directed at her. She looked away. She'd felt fine until he appeared. And suddenly her insides were a jumble of confusion and sadness again.

"I think Cas is right," Sam was saying to Dean, and Castiel had turned his attention back to Dean. "Give me the address she gave you," Cas said. "I'll discover her intentions."

Dean looked at him, clearly pissed, wanting to trust Anna but standing alone in the minority. He huffed, outnumbered. "Yeah. Fine."

* * *

A woman entered a large, dark, and empty warehouse. Wind swept through the interior, and with it came the sound of whispering voices. "Hello?" the woman called, her brilliant red hair whipping around her face in the wind. "Who's there?" Over her head, lightbulbs burst, showering the entire warehouse in sparks. She stopped walking.

"Hello, Anna," Castiel said, appearing behind her.

She turned around slowly, her dark eyes looking at him guardedly. "Well," she said. "If I didn't know any better… I'd say the Winchesters don't trust me."

"_I_ don't trust you," Cas corrected her, looking at his sister angel carefully. "I wouldn't let them come." He began to circle her, giving her a wide berth, looking at her intently. She kept turning to face him. "And why is that?" she asked.

"If you're out of prison, it's because they let you out," Cas said, glancing around the warehouse, watchful, expectant of some kind of trick or trap. "And they sent you here to do their dirty work."

"What makes you so sure of that?" She asked.

"Because I've experienced…" he trailed off, remembering. "Heaven's persuasion."

"You mean when you _gave _me to them," she said, and there was clear bitterness there.

Cas looked at her somberly, regretting what he had done. "That was a mistake." He said, and paused. He had been a different entity back then. "Anna, whatever they sent you here to do—"

"They didn't _send_ me," Anna insisted, almost angrily. "I escaped."

"_No one _escapes," Castiel replied testily—she was lying, she had to be—but Anna almost seemed amused at his comment. "All these centuries, and you're underestimating me _now_?" She asked. "I escaped. I'm working on my own." She paused, mouth thinning a little. "Essentially."

"All right," Cas said, going along with her momentarily. "If you're not one of them, then what do you want?"

"I want to _help_." She sounded emphatic, but Castiel almost had to smile at the way _she_ underestimated _him_.

"Then what are doing with that knife?" He asked, looking at her in superiority. Her expression faded. She was caught. She grudgingly pulled out a knife—not an angel blade. "I'm not allowed to defend myself?" She asked. Another flimsy attempt on her part.

"Against whom?" Castiel asked. "That blade doesn't work against angels. It's not like this one." His angel blade was in his palm now, where she could see it. Her eyes flickered from the blade to him, her eyebrows moved closer together.

"Maybe you're not working for Heaven," Castiel said. "But there's something you're not telling me."

Anna's chin raised and she looked at him long, hard, and silent. Then finally, she spoke. "Sam Winchester has to die."

Castiel's eyes narrowed. He had suspected her of as much.

"I'm sorry, but we have no choice. Heaven is _divided_, Castiel," Anna said. "Some want the Apocalypse. Others want to avoid it at all costs."

"And you want to avoid the Apocalypse by killing Sam," Castiel surmised.

"Yes," Anna said simply. "He's Lucifer's vessel."

"He's not the only one."

"What, that guy Nick?" Anna shook her head, as if that were a ridiculous thing to suggest. "He's burning away as we speak. No. There may be other vessels, but Sam is the only vessel that matters. You know what that means: If Lucifer can't take Sam, his whole plan short-circuits. No fight with Michael, no Croatoan virus." She looked at him unflinchingly. "I assume you've heard about the grim future ahead for everyone, Cas? For _you_?"

He looked at her sharply. "Bit and pieces."

Anna was frowning. "Maybe someone should show you the big picture. Because I've seen it all." She looked pensive, eyes falling away from his. "And it's not pretty." She looked at him again. "We kill Sam Winchester and none of it has to happen."

Cas raised his chin slightly. "Even if you could… kill Sam, Satan would just bring him back to life."

"Not after I scatter his cells across the universe," Anna said. Cas turned away, disturbed as Anna continued. "They'll never find him. Not all of him."

Castiel clenched his jaw in deep thought. She did have a point. And maybe half a year ago, he would have gone along with her plan without a second thought. But things had changed, and he couldn't even allow himself to consider killing Sam. He turned back to her. "We'll find another way," he said, attempting to forge a common ground with her.

"Oh, will we?" Anna asked, sounding darkly amused. "Last time I checked we weren't really even on the same side anymore, Castiel. You've changed." He turned slowly to look at her again, seeing no reason to dodge her accusation. He knew she was right. "Yes, I have."

Anna stepped a little closer, beseeching him. "What I'm suggesting is simple—clean—reasonable. Why are you so adamant about protecting Sam Winchester? It's in vain. It ends this way, or it ends with the Apocalypse and Lucifer walking the earth and subsequently _destroying_ it." Castiel stared at the ground to her left. Anna continued. "How's the Colt working out? Or the search for God? Don't you see? _Nothing else _is working. If you want to stop the devil, _this_ is how."

He looked at her at that point. He hadn't given up on God, and he wasn't ready to concede that there were no options left. He wanted to believe there was a way, somehow. "I disagree."

She looked frustrated and angry. "Cas, I didn't want to do this. But you need to see exactly how bad it gets for the people you care about. I may have been in prison this whole time, but I've seen, Cas." She raised her eyebrows for just a second. "Everything you've been doing." Her eyes looked at him meaningfully. "Everything you _will_ do. To Alex." At the mention of her, Castiel felt his defenses immediately rise. Anna seemed to see it, too. She almost looked like she pitied him. "You care about her very much, don't you?" Anna paused, not seeming to entirely understand. "Well, maybe seeing what happens to her if you refuse to kill Sam… maybe that will change your mind."

Cas frowned, not understanding what she was talking about—was she referring to what Dean had told him, how apparently, in the future, he somehow got Alex killed? Anna was stepping a little closer, raising her hand toward him, two fingers extended. "This might be a little intense," she said, and Castiel stepped back, tried to avoid the touch, but her fingers brushed his temple and it was too late.

In just a flash, he saw vibrant detailed scenes that flashed in front of him without any time for him to even react. In the span of perhaps two seconds, these are the things that Castiel saw.

Cas saw himself and Alex, sitting with their backs against a wrecked car that was turned on its side. He wore the trench coat. She had a shotgun. Bullets whistled by, and Cas was staring at his hands, almost in horror. "No, I'm telling you, it's _gone_!" he shouted, and he sounded panicked. Alex, gripping her shotgun close looked at him in disbelief.

"How can it just be _gone_?" she asked, and he shook his head, unable to respond. Alex craned her neck the other way, attempting to get a view of their assailants. A bullet barely missed her head, and she sat back, fast.

"Well, I wish I brought another shotgun," she commented wryly, even as more gunfire popcorned through the air. Cas looked like he was about to be physically ill. "Hey," Alex said, demanding his attention, grabbing one of his shoulders. "Keep your head. Right? We're gonna get out of here."

He said nothing, but his alarm, panic, and dread was visible. Alex attempted to get him to look her in the eyes by saying his name. "Cas." When that didn't work, she put a hand on his neck, her thumb resting on his jawline, said his name again. He finally looked at her in the eye. Despite the war zone, the softest little helpless smile sprung onto Alex's face. "Looks like it's my turn to protect _you_."

The scene faded into a new one, where Cas, still in his trench coat, was pacing a motel room. "You're far too reckless," he was saying, angrily. "I lose my, I don't know,_ angel mojo_ today, and you risk your life like that? What would happen if you got injured?"

"Then I would be_ injured_," Alex said, not hostile, but not pleasant either. "This is my life Cas—I'm not gonna sit back and sip margaritas while Satan is trying, and sort of succeeding, to destroy the world. I'm sorry you lost your healing power stuff, but I risked my life before you, and I'll risk my life now."

Cas looked at her almost sullenly. "Well I don't like it."

"You never have," Alex pointed out. She sounded a little annoyed, but after she said it, there was a grudging little smile pulling at her lips.

Quiet, standing in front of her, Cas was looking down at the ground, then at her. "I just don't think I could live if you died," he said softly, and her smile fell. She looked stunned and suddenly vulnerable. There was a long silence, and then he took her hand gently, looking down as his thumb stroked across the knuckles. "Well… I'm not going _anywhere_," Alex said softly, trying to sound confident, and he gave her a look like he wanted to believe, but was too afraid to be able. He pulled her close into a tight hug, and her arms circled around him, inside the trench coat. His eyes were shut tightly. One of his hands gripped the back of her head. The scene faded away into darkness.

A new scene. Dean was pacing in front of a truck, scanning the distance, agitated. Behind him there was a campsite, cabins and cars. It was dusk. Dean took a long swig from a bottle of Jack, then unhappy that he'd drained the last of the contents, threw it down to the ground where it shattered.

An old Toyota Land Cruiser pulled in just then, and Dean, murderous, zeroed in on it. Alex and Cas got out. Cas was wearing different clothes—hunting boots, worn out jeans, a faded button up with a cargo jacket. His hair was a little longer and he had the beginnings of a beard. Alex looked tanner than before, a little more tired and worn out. Her hair was messy and her shirt was lopsided. She was straightening it and glancing at Dean, who was bearing down on the two of them with a glare.

"Why the _hell _are you two forty minutes later than everyone else?" he demanded.

"Got lost," Cas said casually, glancing at Dean with mild irritation, then grimaced, wrinkling his nose. "Dean—how much did you _drink_? You reek."

Dean shot Cas a death glare, his voice already bordering on a shout. "Listen, this is the damn end of the world and I don't have time for _you two_ to be screwing around!"

"_Relax_ Dean," Alex said, but it sounded more like a command than an attempt to soothe her brother. Dean whirled on her, outraged. "Oh, _relax_? Yeah, great! Lucifer released the freakin' Croatoan virus, Lucifer's out there trying to kill us, and this little group of a hundred people is depending on me to tell them what to do and how to survive. Yeah, it's a _real _relaxing environment!"

"Look Dean, we're all living in the same hell, okay?" Alex fired back angrily. "Why do you have to act like you're the only one having a hard time?"

"Oh _cry me a river_, yeah, you two are having such a damn_ hard time_, aren't you?" Dean asked, looking between the two of them pointedly. Alex rolled her eyes at her brother, annoyed and pissed. Cas just looked at Dean, stepping a little closer, narrowing his eyes meaningfully. His voice was low when he spoke. "Back _off_, Dean."

Dean's head turned smoothly, his expression nasty. "You got some nerve, man," he slurred. "This is none of your damn business."

"Actually, it _is _his business," Alex said immediately, not even giving Cas a chance to speak. Dean looked back at her, glaring and Alex returned the glare. "Cas and I are _together,_ Dean, okay? We have been for like six months now."

There was a silence. Dean looked at Cas, then at Alex, his jaw tight, nostrils flared. "And _when_ were you planning to tell me this?"

"What, to get your _permission_?" Alex asked sarcastically, and Dean exploded. "You don't think I deserve to know what's going on in my little sister's life?" he moved toward her suddenly, bearing down on her angrily, almost violently, and Cas blocked his way, stepping in pointedly, holding out a hand and looking ready to deck Dean if need be.

"Dean—get back," he said. Dean stopped, a piercing glare aimed at the other man.

"_Maybe_ you would know what was going on in her life if you ever made an _effort _to be part of it, Dean," Cas said acidly, defensively. Dean's expression chilled further. "You haven't even _talked _to her any time in the last year except to yell at her or tell her where she messed up a mission! And besides that, last time I checked," Cas continued, voice brimming with hostility and cynicism, "_she's_ the one in charge of making her own decisions, not _you_."

Dean suddenly got an odd smile on his face, then looked down, chuckling.

"What's so funny?" Cas asked suspiciously.

Dean looked back at him, his expression superior and hateful. "You," Dean said cooly. "You were a pretty sorry excuse for an angel, but you're an even more pitiful excuse for a man."

"Hey," Alex barked, coming forward and shooting daggers at Dean with her eyes. "Don't talk to him like that!" She looked at Dean in disgust. "You're a real asshole these days, you know that?"

"Maybe I am!" Dean shouted, once again wrathful. "But you two don't get to mess around like friggin' idiots when you're out on a mission again, you hear me? You _come back _when I say, no earlier, no later. There's a reason I'm in charge around here, and if you two want to try and go against me, I got _no problem_ kicking you out!"

There was a short silence. "Listen to yourself, Dean," Alex said, her anger fading into disillusioned sadness. "Who _are _you? What happened to my brother?"

"What happened to your brother?" he asked, face twisted in anger. He was unresponsive to her softer tone, his voice still bordering on a shout. "A whole lot of shit, that's what!" He looked at her resentfully. "And it doesn't help that you're being a lying _bitch _about everything."

At that comment, Cas glaring dangerously, once again stepping into Dean's line of sight, his patience growing thin, his anger becoming more visible. "_Watch _the way you speak to her."

There was a deep chuckle in Dean's throat, like he found Cas's anger amusing. "That's sweet Cas," he said darkly, "trying to stand up for your little whore."

The words were barely all the way out of his mouth before Cas punched him in the face, sent him stumbling backwards with a split lip. "Don't call her that!" Cas shouted, then in confused anger, shook his head, staring at Dean, aghast. "Alex is your _sister_!" Cas shouted almost sounding like he was pleading. "What is _wrong_ with you, Dean?"

Dean spat blood down onto the ground. "I call 'em like I see 'em, angel wings," he said cynically, wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, gave them a dirty look, looked at Cas, as if he were considering retaliation. Then he shook his head, a dead-in-the-eyes smile on his face. "You're not even worth it, man." He turned and walked off into the night.

Cas turned to Alex, who looked deeply hurt and troubled, close to tears and shaken up. She stared after her brother a moment, arms hugged around herself. She looked at Cas, who had come and gently touched her arm, looking at her in concern. "I don't recognize him at all anymore, Cas," Alex said softly, wounded. She looked down, and Cas looked back at where Dean had gone, expression troubled. "Come on," he said, putting his arm around her shoulder. "Let's go home."

The scene faded away into the interior of a cabin. It was bright inside, daytime. From the flowery trees visible through the window, it was clearly spring time. The cabin was decorated simply. Some yellow wild flowers sat in a vase on a small table. The table had two chairs. A painting of a sunset hung on one of the walls. There was a large, unmade bed, a little kitchenette, and a small couch. That's where Cas was sitting—one foot propped up and in a splint. "I _hate_ this," Cas said, forlorn. Across from him, pulling a box out of the closet, Alex turned to look at him sympathetically. "I know."

She came to sit beside him, the box on her lap.

"I'm useless," Cas continued. At that, Alex looked at him pointedly, wordlessly. He looked back at her, and she gave him a little look, a little 'don't go there' smile. He didn't seem to be able to stay unhappy, his face softening into a smile. He turned his attention to shifting himself, gingerly repositioning his foot slightly. He hissed in pain.

Alex looked at him, wincing sympathetically. "I'm sorry. Broken bones suck." She shifted the box on her knees. "Even angels bleed sometimes, huh?"

Cas got quieter, a little somber. "I haven't been an angel for awhile now."

Alex looked at him sidelong, smiling crookedly, shrugging a little. "Well, you'll always be one to me." Cas sent her a sidelong look, and Alex looked down, suddenly flustered. "That, uh... sounded better in my head," she said, and looked at him again, grinning, laughing at herself. He wasn't laughing at her, and her embarrassment faded into a meaningful gaze. His eyes mirrored hers.

"So." Alex cleared her throat. "Uh, wanna help me look through this junk?" Alex asked, and put the put the box between them, brushing the sappy moment aside. "I haven't looked in here since I packed it all up a couple years ago." She pulled out a photo. It was her, Sam, and Dean, smiling, arms around each other. Her face immediately saddened. "Now I remember why." She looked at the picture somberly for a long, quiet moment, then looked at Cas, troubled, exhaling. "I don't think I can keep this."

Cas held on his hand, motioned for her to give it to him. "I'll keep it for you," Cas said. "If you get rid of it, you'll always regret it."

She looked at the photograph intently for a minute. "I should have gone after Sam while I still could have," she said softly, to herself. Then handed over the photograph to Cas, her expression a little blank. She went back to looking through the box, visibly pushing her thoughts aside, and Cas looked at her sidelong for a moment. He then helped her sort through the box. He fished out a shiny silver object. "Well, hello!" he commented, turning it over in his hand. Alex looked surprised. "My whistle?" she asked. "I forgot I even kept that."

He held it out to her, and she took it, looked at in a mixture of fond reminiscence and sadness. She then looked at him openly, and there was such a depth, such a mutual understanding in the shared gaze. "You should have this," she said suddenly.

Cas looked surprised. "Me? No. Why?"

Alex moved the box onto the floor, scooted closer to Cas, pulled out the silver chain that was hidden beneath his shirt, undoing the clasp. "This whistle was pretty much a part of me for twenty five years." Her eyes darted up to his. "You changed my whole life." She held his gaze, looked at him significantly. "Not just by giving me my voice."

He looked touched, but still protested even as she was putting the whistle onto the chain—from which a silver ring already hung. "I can't—" Cas started.

Alex stopped a minute, looked at him, eyebrows raised, a little playful, a little challenging. "Say no to me _one _more time, Castiel."

He seemed to give up on saying no, his eyes softening as a fond, crooked smile spread over his face. "Wouldn't dare."

"That's what I thought," she said teasingly, and fastened the clasp back, then paused, looking at the whistle with an odd expression, a soft almost-smile. "You know, it's kind of insane, but... I'm _glad_ I was mute." She looked at Cas again, whose expression was a little perplexed. Alex's lopsided smile was paired with surprisingly shy eyes. "It meant I got to meet you." She tucked it all back under his shirt, and Cas caught her hand in his, held it a minute, and wordlessly, they looked into each other's eyes. Cas's eyes seemed to darken, fill with intention. "Come here," he told her huskily, and Alex complied immediately. She climbed onto his lap, her legs on either side of him as her arms circled his neck, one of her hands against the back of his head, fingers in his hair. His hands came to rest on either side of her waist and he looked at her openly, adoringly—there was no other way to describe it. "You... are the most perfect woman alive," he said.

Visibly embarrassed, smiling, Alex pressed a kiss to his lips. A slow, simple kiss. He smiled against the kiss, eyes closed. She drew back a little, put a finger on his lips as his eyes opened again. She seemed to be trying to stop him from saying anything else. He seemed to be amused by that and spoke again her finger, playful. "Well, I would _know_," he said, shrugging in jest.

"Please just shut _up_," she said, grinning before she kissed him again, at first just to silence him. And then, after a couple seconds, the kiss deepened. His hands rested lightly on her waist skimmed down to her hips, then gripped a little firmer, pulled her a little closer. How small she looked there in his arms. They pulled apart, just slightly, and Alex rested her forehead against his. Eyes now closed, Cas smiled softly. Content. Alex's eyes went up and down, skimming the length of his face.

It all faded away.

Cas was chopping firewood outside the cabin, around the back. Orange leaves dotted the trees surrounding the area—autumn. There was a solid thunk as Cas split a log. Alex appeared, suddenly, in the doorway of the cabin, her face anxious and body language tense. Cas saw her arrive and was about to smile at her, then took in her appearance. "Cas—come inside," she said. "Fast." She disappeared back into the cabin, even as Cas was wordlessly dropping the axe and doing just as she said. He climbed the few steps two at a time and entered the cabin to find Alex standing in the middle of the cabin, arms folded, expression intensely _wrong_.

"What is it?" Cas asked, going to her, concerned. He grasped her arms gently, trying to get her to look at him. "Alex?"

She finally looked at him, expression close to horror. "Do you, uh, remember that last run the group did into the city? When you got mad at me for sneaking off to go to the drug store?"

"Yes, of course I remember—" Cas said, not understanding, sounding more than a little worried. "That was yesterday."

"Right, well—" Alex said, shaking her head, struggling. "I was getting a test." She seemed out of breath. "I thought I was just late." She looked at him in trepidation. "But… I'm, I'm _not._"

Cas looked lost, and even more worried. Alex swallowed, her voice lowering to a frightened whisper. She looked close to tears. "I uh, I." Her jaw worked oddly. "I'm _pregnant_, Cas."

Cas blinked twice. Alex waited for him to say something, then seemed to think he didn't understand. "With a _baby_," she said.

He let go of her, took a step back, as if he'd had the breath knocked out of him. "I know what pregnant means," he said. He was staring at the floor, expression unreadable.

"What are we gonna do?" Alex asked, close to tears, her eyes downcast, blinking rapidly. "This is _no place_ for a baby, for a child."

Cas looked at her, took in her distress again, and then caught her hands up in his, returning his full attention to her, trying to catch her gaze. "Our child," he said gently, chin bent down, eyes seeking hers. He sounded surprised and in awe and a little worried all at the same time. Alex's face softened as she met his gaze. "_Our_ child," Cas said again, looking at her with eyes full of many different things—apprehension, uncertainty, but most of all, love. He held her gaze, and even though he looked set off balance and trepidatious, he somehow looked overjoyed, too. "We made something, together… a new _life_." He sounded like the thought itself stirred him down to the soul.

Alex looked at him, a certain kind of stunned hopefulness softening her features. "I just… I thought maybe you wouldn't want this," she confessed. Cas looked at her in soft bewilderment. "I want _everything _with you."

Alex looked at him intently, breathing hard suddenly, emotional. "You're sure?"

"_Yes_ I'm sure," he said immediately. Alex looked somewhat relieved, but only for a moment. She looked frightened again, and her voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. "Cas, I'm just so friggin' scared. I don't know how to do this."

Cas pulled her close, into his arms, soothing her. "We're in this together," he told her quietly. Alex had her head laid on his shoulder, eyes closed tight, and one of his hands came there against the back of her scalp, cradling her head firmly. He pressed a single kiss there on the top of her head. For a minute they were still like that, then Alex pulled back a little, enough to look at him. She looked like she were thinking a million things, and Cas seemed to know it, too. "I'm gonna take care of us," he told her, and those simple words visibly relieved her. He pulled her into another solid embrace. He was smiling softly, his eyes filled with light. "We'll find a way. We always do."

The scene ended.

Alex was pacing back and forth on a cabin porch, her expression tense and worried. "Chuck it's been _two days_ and we haven't heard from them," she said. Chuck was watching her from the corner of his eye. "You know how those old CB radios are, Alex. Probably quit working. They'll be back. They always are."

Alex stopped pacing and leaned against the railing of the porch of her and Cas's cabin, one hand on her head as if she were tired or had a headache. Chuck looked at her sidelong. "Are you sick or something?"

"No, why?" Alex asked slowly, mistrustfully.

"I just, I guess I can't believe you stayed behind on this mission. Seemed like a pretty big one." Alex said nothing, staring straight ahead of herself. Chuck tried again. "It just seems kinda out of character for you to not go… you always go."

"Not this time, Chuck," Alex said cryptically. Chuck seemed perplexed and even suspicious, but let it go. At that moment, one of the younger guards ran past, shouting over his shoulder, "They're back!"

Alex craned her neck, trying to see down the twisting road. Dean's Jeep had just become visible, heading up the caravan. "Thank_ God_," Alex breathed, so relieved. Chuck glanced at her. She was already taking off, down the porch and toward the front of the camp where the cars would circle up. The other campers who had stayed behind were gathering, forming a small crowd as the cars pulled in. Dean swung out of his Jeep, and Cas jumped down off the back of the Jeep, slinging his gun back on its strap, scanning the crowd. Alex pushed her way through everyone, making a beeline for him. She didn't even see Dean, passed right by him. Catching sight of her, Cas grinned, relieved, maybe as much as she was. He a cut on his face, grime and dirt. Alex ran the last couple steps to him, threw her arms around his neck even as he wrapped his arms around her, lifting her up into a tight embrace. "I am _never_ letting you go anywhere alone, _ever_ again!" Alex told him, clinging to him tightly. He pulled back to look at her, his eyes wrinkled from his wide grin.

"What, miss me?" he wisecracked, and kissed her through his smile. Dean watched the reunion grimly, then stalked off in the opposite direction.

The scene faded.

Alex and Cas were standing, binoculars in hand, on a plateau that overlooked a small town. Cas's Land Cruiser was parked next to them. "But this is the last time," Cas was saying. "This recon stuff, you know, pretty safe, but still." He lowered his binoculars. "Not safe enough. Forget the raids and Dean's crazy missions."

Alex was quiet a minute, and the wind whipped her hair around her face for a couple seconds. "I agree."

Cas looked at her like he must have misheard. "You what?" He looked at her strangely. "You're not going to argue with me?"

Alex lowered her binoculars, too, and looked at him, shook her head. "No."

Cas turned and faced her straight on, put a hand to her forehead. "Are you feeling all right?"

"A little sick, actually," she admitted. He lowered his hand, concerned, and she batted him away good-naturedly. "I'm fine, I'm_ fine_." She sighed. "I just know, for now, my out-in-the-field-days are gonna have to come to a close. To stay safe. To keep… the baby safe." She said 'the baby' as if it were still a foreign concept to her.

"I can stay behind with you," Cas offered, drawing a surprised look from Alex. "I don't have to go out on the missions, if it would make you feel better. You wouldn't have to worry about me."

"You'd do that for me?" Alex asked, touched.

"Of course," Cas replied, as if he didn't understand how she could think otherwise. "You're the most important thing to me. Out of everything."

Alex cocked her head to the side, a fond little smile on her lips. "You sure do know how to make a girl feel special," she said teasingly, grabbing him by the collar of his jacket, and he grinned at her, kissed her as she pulled him close. She curled into him after the kiss, and he wrapped his arms around her protectively, his chin resting on top of her head. "We're gonna do this, Alex," he said softly, reflective. "Have a life. A regular life in a crazy world. Our _family_." He said the word family in such a gentle, awed way.

Alex frowned over his shoulder, squinting into the distance. Something had caught her eye. "What was that?"

Cas looked back where she was looking. "What was what?"

"I thought I saw some movement up at the farmhouse," Alex said, setting her binoculars down on the hood of the Land Cruiser.

"An animal, maybe? There's never Croats out this far from the city." Cas said, but was pulling his pistol out anyway, checking the chamber. "I'll go check."

"Not alone," Alex said firmly, and he looked at her, clearly not wanting to have this argument. She was already drawing her pistol and checking it for ammo. Cas looked like he was thinking about protesting, then let it go, told her, "just stay close."

Together, they approached the run-down farmhouse, sweeping the area with weapons ready. "There," Alex said, motioning her aimed pistol toward the window to the right of the main doorway. There was a flash of movement, and Cas tensed, held out an arm. "Stay back," he muttered. Alex complied, but stayed on alert, her gun covering him, her eyes darting around, making sure they weren't being approached from behind or the side.

Cas slowly climbed the stairs up onto the large porch, his pistol held high. "I don't see—" he whispered… then froze. He muttered a curse word even as the front door burst open. Croatoans, at least seven of them, burst out, hungry for blood. "Get back, get back!" Cas was yelling as he emptied his ammo into them, stumbling backwards down the stairs. It happened in less than three seconds—one of the Croats jumped off the porch railing and straight onto Alex, knocking her to the ground, catching her completely off guard.

Cas didn't even see it happen, but he heard her scream and whirled to look at her, almost getting himself killed in the process. The last Croat grabbed onto him, tried to bite him—savagely, Cas pistol-whipped his attacker across the face and then shot him point-blank, then immediately charged the couple of feet over to where Alex was. He grabbed the Croat off of her, throwing a sloppy punch and then shooting the guy two times in the chest, barely able to hold the gun. The Croat fell over, dead, forgotten.

Alex was laying flat on the ground, blinking, stunned as Cas dropped to her level, seeing the bloody wound on her shoulder and visibly losing something mentally, a soft, shocked sound escaping him. He shakily gathered her into his arms, supporting her, and she looked at him with glazed over eyes, confused. She was breathing heavily. It was a deep, vicious bite wound on her shoulder, and blood spilled out, down her arm, staining his clothes too as he pulled her close. Cas fumbled, pulling her up as he stood and carried her away, stumbling back toward the Land Cruiser. Alex's head lolled back and she grimaced, groaned, sounding dazed.

"You're, you're okay, you're gonna be fine," Cas told her frantically, setting her down in a sitting position against the tire of the car, looking at her wound, confounded and alarmed and at a terrified loss. "Fine, just fine, let me see," he was continuing. Alex was looking at him in shock. Their eyes met, both pairs filled with dread. She shut her mouth, swallowed, closed her eyes tight.

"Cas—" she managed, then opened her eyes. They were wide and fearful. Knelt in front of her, Cas had a useless hand pressed hard down on her wound. "Cas, I'm gonna turn," she said in the softest voice.

He shook his head in vehement denial. "No, you're _not_." He sounded desperate, angry almost. Alex gave him an unexpectedly brassy look, but it was tainted by uncoordinated wooziness. "Do you _see_ this bite?"

He did, but his expression showed nothing but stubborn, fearful defiance. He almost didn't seem to hear what she'd said. "You're going to be _fine_," he insisted again, not really looking at her, his words beginning to run together. "I'm going to get you out of here, and, and you're gonna be fine Alex, I'm gonna get you home, and you'll be—"

"Cas, stop!" Alex suddenly said, and grabbed his face, made him look at her. She seemed suddenly and absolutely terrified. She breathed hard a few times out of her nose, then her eyes fell downwards to her bleeding shoulder. She sounded hollow. "We both know I am _not_ gonna be fine."

"_No_," Cas protested weakly, his voice breaking hopelessly. "Don't say that," he pleaded. Alex looked at him, filled with a sudden, quiet resolve. Cas saw it, and went still, looked down in cold dread Alex held out her loaded pistol to him. He looked from it to her in disbelief, face gone slack. Her eyebrows moved closer together as her eyes pleaded silently with him.

He was shaking his head weakly, silently. Alex's voice hitched. "_Please _Cas," she whispered, eyes filling with tears. She pushed the gun at him, into the palm of his hand, using her other hand to close his hand around it. They stayed like that a minute, Cas looking at her in lost, terrified dismay. He didn't move.

Alex groaned suddenly, screwing her eyes shut and gritting her teeth in pain, to which Cas looked even more terrified—and his eyes were shining with unshed tears. "Cas, please," Alex said, growing more urgent. He took the gun, wrapped his hand around it, but looked at her unmovingly, shaking his head again.

"If you don't, then I have to, and I _can't_," Alex said brokenly, barely able to speak in an even tone.

"I'm supposed to keep you _safe_," Cas said, looking at her in abject horror. "Not _kill _you!"

"There's no other _choice_," Alex said. "If I turn and then hurt you—" she stopped herself, eyes tearing up. "It's too late for me, Cas!" she said, crying now. Cas just stared at her, dismayed. "Please. _Just do it_!" Alex insisted, panicked, voice rising in fear and insistence. Cas's face broke. "I can't, I _can't_!"

Alex grabbed the gun by the barrel with shaking hands, practically stabbing it into her stomach. "Cas, shoot me!" she screamed. "_Shoot_ me!"

The sound of the gunshot echoed through the thin autumn air. Alex and Cas stared at each other in complete shock—like neither could believe he had actually pulled the trigger. And then Alex whimpered in intense pain and Cas threw the gun aside, trembling, beside himself, pulling her into his lap, cradling her as blood pooled across her abdomen.

"I'm… I'm _so sorry_," Cas said, barely able to speak through tears. His face was crumpled and dismayed in shock. Alex blinked strangely, staring up at the sky. "It's... okay," she said softly, sounding far away. Her face then scrunched up in pain and she made a horrible, pained sound. Cas gripped her tighter as she breathed hard through gritted teeth, stared at the sky again. "Cas… do you... do you think there's still a Heaven up there?" she asked, then looked at him with teary eyes. She suddenly looked so much younger and scared, unguarded and vulnerable. "Where we can be together again?"

"Yes, of course there's still a heaven," Cas told her immediately. She looked disillusioned, like she didn't believe him. She groaned again, sobbed, thrashed in pain.

Her breathing was becoming shallow and labored, but she looked up at him and suddenly there was a brave little smile through the pain. At the sight of it, Cas touched the side of her face in tenderness. She looked at him a moment, eyes traveling his face. "I love you. So much," Alex whispered, eyes locked onto his, expression soft, anxious. She grew intense. "_Promise me_, Cas." She swallowed, winced a minute, pained. "Promise you won't blame yourself for this, okay? I—" she grimaced again. "I know how you are," she said through gritted teeth, but fought to maintain eye contact.

"Alex—" he managed brokenly, looking at the woman in his arms with such guilt and pain. He pressed a long, aching kiss to her forehead. Her eyes fluttered a little, and she looked up at him, her hand weakly coming to touch his face, and then going to the back of his neck, pulling him toward her for one last kiss, which he readily gave. It was gut-wrenchingly gentle, slow, fervent. She grabbed one of his hands when they pulled apart, looking afraid and in pain. He gently grasped her hand in return, running his thumb over the top of her hand gently, tracing familiar lines. As if sleepy, she blinked, eyes got hazy. And then she went still, her body going completely limp in his arms.

Cas looked like he'd stopped breathing, as if he were frozen. He stared at Alex motionlessly, stunned. And then, he lost it, face crumpling as he clutched her body to himself. He wept loudly, a completely lost man.

The scene faded.

"Yeah, Chuck, it's just—" Dean looked over his shoulder, pausing mid sentence, frowning at the sound of a car coming. "Ah good, they're back," Chuck said, sounding somewhat relieved.

"Geez, and it's about damn time too," Dean grumbled at the sight of Cas's Land Cruiser pulling up. Then, he frowned deeper, pausing. Only Cas was in the car. And then, as he stopped the car and got out, both Dean and Chuck went still. Cas, who looked horrible and pale, had blood all over him. He looked at them with a broken expression, shut his door, opened the back door, pulled something out. And then Dean seemed to stop breathing when he saw what Cas had pulled out of the back seat. Cas was carrying Alex, who was covered in blood, and limp. Dean walked forward as if in a dream, for a moment in total shock. "_No_," Dean said softly. Alex's skin color was unnaturally pale, bloodless. She was clearly dead. Dean, who had stopped in his tracks, was suddenly heaving heavy, racing breaths, horrified and again he said, "_no_," more adamant that time, stepping back.

"She—a Croatoan—" Cas said blankly, looking in Dean's general direction unseeingly. His fingers clenched into Alex like vices. "You—you weren't supposed to let her get hurt," Dean said, shellshocked.

"I know," Cas said woodenly, looking down, glazed over.

"You were supposed to protect her," Dean said again, hollow. Then, suddenly, enraged. "You were supposed to _protect _her!" Cas looked at Dean completely devoid of emotion. He just stood there, holding Alex.

Dean went forward, reached out for his sister, barely holding himself together. "Give her to me," he said, grief breaking his voice pathetically.

Cas's eyes snapped to Dean's. "_No_." Cas looked down at Alex for the first time, and his expression distorted, his voice wavered. "I _can't_."

"Like hell you can't," Dean said, trembling. Cas responded by falling to his knees and breaking down, clutching Alex to himself pitifully. "You can't take her from me!" he sobbed out brokenly, clinging to Alex's dead body, refusing to let go as he wept bitterly.

The scene faded.

Dean sat across from Alex's still body, which was laid in Chuck's cabin. She'd been changed into another shirt, a long sleeved one that hid her shoulder wound. She looked like she could have been sleeping, even though she was so pale. Dean gazed at her silently. "Do you remember that time you glued my shoes to the floor, kiddo?" He shook his head, a soft, sad little smile on his face. "I was so damn mad." He looked at her face carefully, memorizing every detail. "Couldn't stay mad too long though. My little sidekick." His smile faded, his voice hitched. Memories seemed to pass in front of his eyes and he broke down. "I miss you_ so damn much_."

He put his face in his hand, tortured. "Why'd it all have to fall apart?" he asked, forlorn, frustrated, beyond sorrow. "Why'd you _leave me_? Why'd you fall for Cas? And why couldn't I just let it _go_?"

He shook his head in self-loathing, tears running down his face. "I pushed Sam away, was too proud to admit I did the same to you… I guess I thought because you were a few doors down we were still close." Dean bowed his head miserably, a broken man. "I'm so, so sorry Al."

There was a soft noise behind him, and Dean stood up, expression darkening, tears forgotten. "Cas."

Cas stood there in the doorway, looking even worse than he had before. Dean looked at him threateningly. "Get outta here, man."

"I _loved_ her Dean," Cas said, his voice low and unsteady.

"Well that doesn't matter now, does it?" Dean retorted bitterly. "She's _dead._ No thanks to you."

There was a long, pained pause. "I had to Dean," Cas managed, but he didn't sound like he believed it.

"_Like _hell_ you did!_" Dean snapped, and advanced on Cas, visibly shaking. "Alex was the only damn thing left in this world that I cared about or loved, I didn't want to but I _trusted you_ to keep her safe and_ this is what happens_?" Dean was irate, messed up, riled. "You let her get bitten then you _shoot her in the stomach_?" He shook his head, a muscle jumped in his cheek. His fists were clenched at his sides. "You're lucky I don't kill you where you stand, Cas."

Cas just looked at him, then his eyes went downward. "Maybe you should."

Dean took that as an open invitation, slugging Cas across the face. Cas stumbled back, his face turned from the force of Dean's fist. But he made no move to retaliate, he just sadly looked back at Dean, who again punched him for all he was worth, not just once—he began to beat Cas into the ground, blow after blow, blind and enraged and ruthless. Cas did nothing—just took it.

Suddenly, two other men entered the cabin and broke them apart. "Whoa, stop, stop!" Chuck shouted as one of the camp guards held Dean back.

"What the _hell_!" Chuck demanded, beside himself. Cas was sitting slumped against the wall, his face bloody and bruising already. Chuck looked at Dean, completely aghast. "Dean, you're beating the man your sister loved… _with her body still in the room_? What is _wrong _with you?"

Dean jerked out of the guard's grip, looking at Chuck and then Cas guiltily, conflicted. Cas looked up, a little dazed. Chuck shook his head. "Listen. I know you both loved Alex very much. I know you're both hurting. But this has _got_ to _stop_! I've watched you two fight over this woman for years now, and it has got to _end_!" He paused, embittered. "What would she say if she could see this?" He shook his head blankly. "You were friends once. _Best _friends."

Dean and Cas glanced at each other, then looked away. Chuck appealed one last time, looking at both of them pointedly, upset. "This is _no one's_ fault."

Cas's head was bowed now. Dean looked at his sister's dead body, then at Chuck. "Yeah, maybe someday I'll believe that," he said tersely. "But not today." He stormed out.

The scene faded.

It was night now, in Cas's cabin, and no lights were on. There was a loud crash. Cas threw one of the table chairs at the wall, where the painting of a sunset hung. The chair broke as the painting fell off the wall. In a rage, Cas took another swig of green liquid out of the bottle in his hand, let out some kind of animalistic bellow, and kicked over the kitchen table, then threw a plate that had been sitting on the counter, took another long drink from the bottle then threw it at the wall violently. He grabbed the painting and threw it out his cabin door, then he turned and knocked everything off the top of the dresser where it sat in the corner. He ripped the mirror off the wall and sent it crashing to the floor. A picture of him and Alex sat in a frame beside the bed, and he took it and threw it hard with another strange pained shouting sound, panting and crazed.

He yanked open the closet, where some shirts that were clearly Alex's hung. He went still. Stared at them, a long moment, his rage ebbing. Then shut the closet door again, jaw tightening. He grabbed his handgun from where it was tucked in his belt, and with a dark expression, he marched out the back door, stumbling a little in the dark, catching in thickets of thorns but not even seeming to notice.

The moon was high and washed the landscape in pale silver, and he stopped there, at the tree line, held the pistol to the side of his head, put his finger on the trigger—and then nothing. There was a long moment where he stood there, obviously trying to make himself pull the trigger. But he seemed unable. He muttered a dark curse word.

He let the gun fall to his side. Breathing heavily, jaw clenched, he flew into another fit of blind rage, and ran full force into the large tree trunk in front of him, bashing himself into it pathetically. He fell backwards, landing hard, making sounds like sobs, but not from physical pain. He stood up drunkenly, looked around for the gun, topsy-turvy.

"Cas?" came a voice behind him, and Cas turned, grabbed at the owner of the voice, slammed them violently up against the same tree he'd just slammed himself into. "It's me Cas, it's Chuck!" Chuck said, hands raised in surrender, expression worried.

Cas let go, blinking weirdly, looking disconcerted and crazy. "You, uh, you okay?" Chuck asked, to which Cas exploded, grabbing Chuck with renewed vigor and misdirected rage. "There's no _heaven, _Chuck!" He shouted cynically, bitter, hateful emphasis on the word heaven. "She is gone forever. _FOREVER_!"

Cas threw Chuck down onto the ground and began pacing manically. "I shot the woman I love," Cas said, sounding defeated, then suddenly enraged again. "I _murdered_ her!"

He stopped, putting a hand on his face, which was twisted up in pain. Chuck watched silently, keeping his mouth shut and not getting up from where he'd been thrown. Cas shook his head and crumpled to his knees, both hands on his face now, miserable sobs shaking his entire body. "Leave me alone," he choked out. "Just leave—me—_alone_."

The scene faded away into a new one.

Crouched, Cas laid a bundle of yellow wildflowers at the base of a wooden cross etched with the initials A.E.W. He looked somber and stoic, his eyes slightly hooded. "She's been gone six months now, Chuck," Cas said, addressing the man who stood behind him, watching silently with hands in his pockets. Cas seemed a little out of sorts. His hair was longer and shaggy, unkempt, there were dark circles under his eyes. His color was sallow. He stood up, looked toward Chuck. "Six months." His mouth was in a thin line. "I don't think I can take much more." Cas stated it almost emotionlessly.

Chuck looked at him carefully. "I thought we went over this the night of the funeral," he said. "When you tried to kill yourself."

There was a cynical attempt at a smile on Cas's face. "Yeah, well, I still think about doing it every day," he said nonchalantly. "I've tried a few more times." His expression faded into loathing. "But like the idiot that I am… I can't seem to make myself do it."

"Cas," Chuck said, and put a hand on Cas's shoulder. Looking at Chuck's hand weirdly, Cas shrugged away from him and walked off a couple steps, then stopped. He sounded authentic again, briefly. "Living without her is the most painful—"

He took a deep breath, eyes filled with heavy sadness. "She was the way I understood the world, Chuck." He paused, melancholic. "She taught me how to be human." He was completely still, and sounded earnest, lost, desperate. "I don't know how to love anyone but her. I don't even think I _can_." For a minute, he looked like himself. "I just wish I could go back in time. Change everything." He suddenly chuckled darkly, cynically, as if he were hearing himself. "Wow. Sometimes I hear the things I think and I'm like, how could someone _be _such an idiot? Why do I even _bother_? I'm not even alive anymore. I'm just stalling. Putting off the inevitable. For no damn reason."

"Don't talk like that, Cas," Chuck said. He'd walked after Cas and was standing in front of him now. "You're important."

Cas rolled his eyes at Chuck. "I'm _important_? To who? Who the _hell _would care if I disappeared tomorrow? Dean? He _tolerates_ me. The women I BS all day long? Yeah, right. You? Don't make me laugh." Cas laughed derisively. "I'm not _important_. I only live to get wasted." He sobered a little, melancholic again. "I'm pathetic." His jaw clenched tight, his eyes went down, his voice cracked. "She would _hate_ me if..." Cas swallowed, trailed off. He clenched the forgotten bottle in his hand, lifted it and took a swig.

"Stay alive, Cas," Chuck said emphatically, watching his friend in concern. "You're still alive for a reason, I know you are. You matter."

Cas looked at him as if insulted. "You sound like a damn religious handout," he said darkly, and walked off, leaving Chuck by himself. The author sighed, then shrugged sadly. "You tried, Chuck," he muttered to himself, then looked back at Alex's grave for a long moment. "He really loved you, didn't he, kiddo?" He paused. "Maybe too much."

The scene faded.

There were a few cars gathered up, people loading weapons and getting ready for some kind of assault. Alex—Alex from 2009—was there with Cas, off to the side, behind a truck. Cas was looking at her strangely. "Kiss me," he whispered, and her expression dropped. "W—what?" she asked, face blank.

"_Please_," he said, his voice just a broken whisper. "I just… I can go in there and face the devil, face death, the whole nine. If you kiss me." He licked his lips nervously. "One last time," he paused, thinking of something, and frowned, then smiled in the softest, saddest way. "Or… first, I guess. For you."

Alex's mouth hung open slightly. "I… uh…" she had quickly become flustered. He hesitantly caught her hands in his. "A dying man's wish," he said softly.

"But... you don't _know_ you're dying," she protested weakly. A muscle in his cheek jerked, and his gaze faltered. "I have been for quite some time."

Alex looking up at him hesitantly, for a very long couple seconds, then nodded, expression a cross between fearful and nervous. "Okay, Cas."

He seemed to have been holding himself back—he kissed her as soon as the go-ahead left her mouth. Gently at first, soft and glancing, then suddenly Alex seemed to take over, pulling him in desperately, and the kiss became something else entirely. Cas pressed into her, she bumped up against the side of the truck they were beside, she let out a soft little moan—he roughly grabbed her hips, lifting her up, her legs wrapped around his waist, the kiss deepened even more, their hands tangled in each other's hair and—then it ended completely when the sound of arriving cars cut them short. They just broke apart, panting, staring at each other.

Without anything further, the scene faded.

An abandoned building, wrecked inside, run down. Cas laid in a pool of his own blood, several gunshot wounds in his chest and abdomen. He gasping for air, dying, looking at a photograph in his hand, struggling. He seemed to lose his strength, and the the life went out of him, he breathed his last, went still.

The sound of dress shoes clicked, echoing, as a tall man entered the room. It looked like Sam. But it was Lucifer, dressed in a white tuxedo. He seemed almost sympathetic as he looked down at the dead body at his feet. "Ah, brother…" he commented softly. "How the mighty have fallen." His head tilted the the side just barely as his eyes traveled Cas's dead body and face. "A shame things had to end this way for you."

Lucifer crossed the room, over to a window, looking out. "You should have joined me while you had the chance, Castiel," he sighed, looked back at Cas's body briefly, cold, superior. "But no. You had to do it your way."

Lucifer returned his gaze to the window. "Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven," he said to no one. He gazed out of the window, triumphant, his eyes chilling and never blinking. He took in a deep, pleased breath. "Hell on earth. Heaven just a memory." The smile deepened. "I win." With his finger, he drew a pitchfork in a splatter of blood on the glass of the window.

And it all faded out.

Everything Castiel just seen had rushed his mind in the span of a couple seconds—he was still in the middle of taking a step backward when everything came back—the warehouse, Anna, reality. Completely shellshocked, he stared at her, breathing heavily, reeling. His mind could barely process everything he'd just taken in.

Anna looked at him intently. "You saw." She said. He could only look at her, wordless, horrified. She seemed satisfied, especially at his speechlessness, seemed to know he'd seen what she meant to show him. "So, now you see," she said, urgently. "Sam Winchester has to die, or all of _that _happens. The pain, the broken relationships. The world, practically destroyed. You, a miserable shell. Everyone you cared about dead and gone." She looked at him significantly. "Lucifer walking the earth, no one left to stop him." She raised her chin slightly. "We can stop that all. Today."

When he said nothing, she lost some of her certainty, frowned at him. Castiel shook his head, regaining some composure, hiding his inner terror just barely. "The answer's still no, Anna."

Anna's face contorted in utter disbelief. She didn't seem to understand, then became almost angry. "You're actually willing to let all of that _happen_? To Dean? To Sam?" Anna stepped a little closer. "To _her_?" At that, Cas looked at Anna, who was shaking her head, almost in disgust.

"What you showed me—it's not real," Cas said vehemently, in denial. "I don't believe it," Cas said, faltering. And he didn't. He _couldn't_.

"Why would I_ lie _to you?" Anna asked angrily.

"You've already lied to me today, and you just want… to trick me into to helping you." Cas accused, then turned a little, allowing the shadows to obscure his face from her. He was struggling, and badly. "None of what you showed me…" he said tremulously, "it's not _possible_." Was it?

"At this point in time, it's _definite_," Anna said intensely, defiant. "The only one lying here is you. To _yourself_. That future _happens_. Everything you saw _happens_, no matter what you do after today. This? What I'm proposing? This is the only way to change that. Don't you _want _to?" She went quiet, giving him a chance to speak, but he said nothing. She tried again, forceful. "Destiny doesn't have to be set in stone, Cas. We can _change_ it. All we have to do is _kill Sam_. He dies so that they can _live_." Still, Cas said nothing, and Anna grew more ardent. "The Croatoan virus never has to even exist—you can save _millions, _Cas. Use your head! This is the right thing to do!" Anna stopped. Got quieter, her eyes full of meaning. "Do this one thing and the woman you love can live." Cas turned on her finally, dangerously, murderous almost. Anna looked at him, mystified. "Don't you _want that_?"

Cas looked at her unblinkingly, his voice low and dangerous. "Anna, you and I have been through much together." He stepped a little closer, his angel blade still in his hand, raising just slightly. "But you come near _any_ of the Winchesters, I will kill you without hesitation."

Anna looked at the blade, then at him, disappointed, disenchanted, not understanding.

She backed up one step, looking at him ruefully. "I don't think you'll ever regret anything as much as what you decided here today, Castiel." It sounded like a threat. She disappeared.

The second Anna vanished, Cas stumbled sideways, catching himself barely against a wall, holding himself up with a flat palm. He could barely breathe. It was as though the things Anna showed him had physically rendered him momentarily incapable of standing. His mind spun with the images he'd seen, the words he'd heard. It felt as though something had been ripped out of him, and he couldn't make sense of it, couldn't understand—_was that real_? Had all of that really happened? Was that really the future? _His _future, no, _their _future? All he could hear was the sound of an echoing gunshot, the strangled cries of Alex, dying in his arms. _Alex._

He looked up suddenly, a horrible thought crossing his mind—if Anna were gone, Sam was in danger, and possibly Alex and Dean, too. Without a second thought, Castiel left immediately, back to the motel room where the Winchesters waited.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ CLIFF HANGERRR. So, this chapter is actually just the __first half__ of what I've been writing the past two weeks. The rest of the episode (5x13 Song Remains the Same) is coming in the next chapter (YES DON'T WORRY CAS IS GONNA HAVE A CHANCE TO REACT TO WHAT HE SAW… LIKE… a LOT! AND A LOOOOT MORE CALEX MOMENTS OK), but the chapter was going to be so long, seriously, if I didn't cut it in half… it was going to be like 30k. Plus, the other half isn't even finished yet, and I figured everyone would be jonesing for an update, right? So, here ya go. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Er, I use the term loosely cuz OMG MY HEART. It hurts. Someone hold me please, I'm crying. I know I am a horrible, horrible person. Expect the next chapter hopefully within the next week?! Please review, as reviews inspire me to write faster hehehe :D_

_BIG HUGE EPIC THANKS to my friend Jess whose advice and beta reading has been SO IMPORTANT and irreplaceable to me... I love you, Mishamigo! Couldn't do this without you!_


	24. Honeymoon's Over

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 24 / Honeymoon's Over

_"How can I change tomorrow if I can't change today?"_  
- Hatebreed

* * *

Cas had disappeared to 'discover Anna's intentions' about ten minutes ago.

Sam sat stock still on one of the motel beds, elbows leaned onto his knees, hands clasped. He glanced at his twin, who had been sitting in the same spot since Cas vanished. She had a hand on her knee, the index finger tapping constantly. She stared at the floor, looking deeply pensive. He could tell she was chewing the inside of her cheek, like she did when something was bothering her. He also knew she was exhausted; sleep deprived from the constant nightmares she'd been having lately. She hadn't said anything about it, but Sam had heard her waking up, breathless and scared, for the past few weeks. Since Carthage, he was pretty sure. He hadn't said anything because he knew how she was about this stuff. She'd tell them when she was ready—ask before then and get an arm ripped off.

Sam glanced at his brother, who was pacing, agitated, true to normal form. "Come _on_, how long does he need, anyway?" Dean demanded, gesturing angrily with one of his hands.

As if on cue, Cas reappeared in the middle of the motel room, startling them all. Sam immediately noticed that he looked different than he had a few minutes prior—almost like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. The angel looked from Sam to Dean, grim, deadly almost. "I found Anna," he said lowly.

"_And_?" Dean asked impatiently, clearly dying to know.

"And she wants to kill Sam," Cas replied harshly. Sam shot to his feet. "What? _Why_?"

Cas looked at him dead in the eye, his expression foul. "She believes it will forestall the Apocalypse." He turned around and marched over to the motel table without any further explanation. Alex stood up with an incredulous expression on her face. "By _killing_ Sam?" She sounded like she hadn't heard Cas right.

At the table, they could only see Cas's profile—he was pulling something out of his pocket—chalk? But when Alex asked that, he went still, his expression pinched slightly, a muscle jumped in his cheek. His eyes slid in her direction, but he didn't look at her. "Yes." He refocused on what he'd been doing, began drawing something vigorously on the table. He sounded impatient, like he were explaining something obvious. "No Sam, no Lucifer. Destroy the vessel, destroy the devil. That's her mentality."

Dean, who had taken a minute to digest, was shaking his head his head. "Really? _Anna_?" He looked and sounded disappointed. A little let down. "I don't believe it."

"It's _true_, Dean," Cas replied, sending a glancing dart of a scowl at Dean. He sounded testy, on edge, and Sam looked at him intently, thinking hard, and realizing that Cas was deeply upset—maybe because Anna had a point. Maybe because Cas thought _Anna was_ _right_. Sam swallowed, his heart beating fast.

"So she's gone all Glenn Close, huh? That's awesome." Dean said flippantly.

Cas looked at Dean, eyes narrowed, expression filled with malevolence. "And who, the _hell_, is Glenn Close?"

There was a shocked pause in the entire room at Cas's rude, angry question. Dean looked at Cas oddly, a little knocked off balance. "Uh… she's no one, just this psycho bitch who likes to boil rabbits."

Unamused and perturbed, Cas gave Dean a dirty look and returned to drawing, his chalk strokes sharp, jabbing—Sam looked closely, saw that Cas's hand was shaking. _Damn, Anna must have meant business. _Sam had never seen Cas so clearly shaken up. _Afraid _almost. Which kind of messed with Sam, made _him_ afraid, made _him_ wonder. He approached Cas cautiously, using a soft, appealing tone. He had to know. "The plan to kill me—would it actually stop Satan?"

"Whoa Sam, _what_?" Alex turned to look at Sam. He glanced at her, but ignored her shocked question and wide eyes, just looked at Cas again. The angel had gone still again, listening hard as Sam asked again, rephrasing the question. "Cas, what do you think? Does Anna have a point?"

There was a heavy silence, and Cas looked at Sam darkly, then glanced at Dean, who still hung back and was looking at the angel in apprehension. Cas looked away, seemed to be thinking. "No," he finally said, distracted, somber. "She's—Glenn Close." He resumed writing with the chalk. Sam wasn't actually convinced—but let it go for the moment. He could feel Alex looking at him, deeply disturbed, and glanced at her, then at Dean, who looked similar—very troubled. Sam cleared his throat, going over towards Cas. "What are you doing, anyway?" he asked, looking at the strange symbols Cas was marking onto the surface of the table.

"A ritual," Cas said blandly. "It will show me where Anna is so that we can go after her."

Dean frowned. "What, look for the super angel-powered chick that wants to gank Sam? Why poke the bear?"

Cas looked at Dean with an impatient, narrow-eyed glare, once again seeming to be off-kilter and short-tempered. "What _bear_?"

"He means why tempt fate," Alex explained, and again, Cas seemed to tense up when she spoke to him. He didn't look at any of them. "We... _poke the bear_ because Anna will keep trying. She won't give up until Sam is dead." He grabbed a bowl that had been sitting on the counter and slammed it down with more force than necessary onto the table. "Therefore, we kill her first," he said with dark resolve. He vanished without warning.

"What the—" Dean started, only to stop when Cas reappeared, a jar in hand. Ignoring the Winchesters, he poured the contents of the jar, some kind of oil, into the bowl on the table. He began to recite something in Enochian. "_Zod ah ma ra la—ee est la gi ro sa._"

Red flame shot out of the bowl, and in unison, Cas stumbled back as if in pain, bracing himself against the back of one of the chairs—he had screwed his eyes shut, was breathing heavily, wincing. Sam and Dean exchanged surprised looks, and Alex had taken a couple steps forward, clearly worried, then hesitating. "Cas, are you—"

"Fine," he said tersely, straightening, avoiding looking at anyone but Dean. "I've found her."

"Okay," Dean said. "So where is she?"

"Not where," Cas said, frowning deeply. "When. It's nineteen seventy-eight."

"She went back in time?" Alex asked. Sam, beside her, was equally confused. "Why nineteen seventy-eight? I wasn't even born yet."

Cas looked at Sam grimly. "And you won't be if she kills your parents."

The twins stilled, understanding and then looking at each other, at a loss.

"Anna can't get to now you because of me," Cas said darkly. "So she's going after them."

"Take us back_ right now_," Dean said, to which Cas looked at him with little patience, cynicism almost. "And deliver you right to Anna?"

Dean didn't back down. "They're our parents, _Cas_, we're going."

Cas shut his eyes a second, seeming to be frustrated. "It's not that easy." He walked a few steps away.

"Why not?" Sam asked.

Cas turned, gave him a peevish glance. "Time travel was difficult even with the powers of heaven at my disposal."

"So, what, you're like a Delorean without enough plutonium?" Dean asked.

Cas looked at Dean unhappily. "I don't understand that reference."

Beside Sam, Alex made a soft little sound, like a muffled, covered up laugh. Sam glanced at her—she was pressing her mouth closed against a little amused smile, her eyes were on Cas. Sam turned his attention back to Cas, who was talking to Dean flatly. "But I'm telling you, taking this trip, with passengers no less—" the angel shook his head, looked somber. "It'll weaken me."

"I can stay here," Alex volunteered, to which Cas's eyes snapped up to her.

"_No_," the three men said in unison.

Alex made a surprised, weirded out face, held her hands out, looked at all of them in rapid succession, ending with Dean, whose 'no' had been the loudest. "_Okay_ then." She now looked mildly embarrassed. "Geez, just trying to lighten the load."

Sam looked from her to Cas, was looking at his sister intensely, his expression unreadable—Cas seemed to feel Sam's gaze and glanced at him, then looked away, jaw working. "There might be more angels who are in on this plan of Anna's," Cas muttered, eyes darting back and forth over the floor in thought. "I don't want _any _of the three of you out of my sight."

"See, even more reason for us to go with you," Dean reasoned, then approached the angel, insistent. "Cas, they're our mom and dad. If we can save them, and not just from Anna... I mean if we can set things right, we have to try."

"_Set things right_?" Alex repeated, eyes narrowed, looking at her brother suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

Dean sent her a pointed look, turned to look at her tersely. "Warn Mom about the nursery fire, Azazel—all of it. Stop the whole shit storm before it even starts." Dean said it like she should have already known what he meant and been on board, but Alex looked as surprised and unsure about that as Sam felt. In fact she almost looked upset as she stared at Cas.

Cas didn't notice her looking at him, he was staring at Dean intensely. He walked forward a little, expression stern. "You truly believe you can change the past, Dean?" he questioned cynically. His voice lowered, his chin pivoted downwards—he looked wary and intensely foreboding. "Even after last time?"

"Well it's at least worth a _shot_, man!" Dean said, growing exasperated. Cas seemed equally frustrated in response, looked from Dean to Sam, glancing just barely at Alex, then looking down to his left. He shook his head grimly. "This is not a good idea," he said.

"Yeah well, good ideas aren't exactly our strong point," Dean said sarcastically. But he had the air of triumph to him, in the slight smile and the way his chin was raised. Like he already knew Cas would do what he'd demanded.

Cas looked at him long and hard, then gave in with a long, deep huff. "Fine," he muttered. "I'll be back with the required essentials." He vanished again.

"_The required essentials_," Dean mocked in a goofy, cartoony voice. His voice returned to normal. "Nerd."

"Don't be such a friggin' douche, Dean," Alex said, twisted her face up in displeasure at Dean. "He's done a lot for us. Would it hurt you to be nice to the guy?"

Dean opened his mouth to reply, but Cas reappeared—two large, ancient looking ceramic jars in hand. "We'll need a bag," he said. "Here," Sam grabbed his duffel and shook the contents out onto his bed, then handed it to Cas. Dean was grabbing his jacket, tossing Sam his. Alex grabbed hers from where it had been thrown over the side of a chair—looked like they weren't going to waste any time. Sam swallowed. This was all his fault.

"Holy oil," Cas explained as he put the two jars into the bag. He then pulled out an angel blade from inside his trench coat. He gave Sam a significant look as he shrugged on his jacket, pausing. "Do not lose this." He put it into the bag and zipped it shut. "Ready?" Cas asked Sam, handing him the bag. Sam took the bag and swung it up onto his shoulder, attempted a smile, but it didn't quite work. "Not really."

Dean, Alex, and Sam gathered facing Cas, Alex between her two brothers, and Cas raised his hands, about to touch them and send them back—but Alex's voice suddenly stopped him short. "Wait, Cas—how bad, exactly, is this gonna set you back?" she asked, peering at him with her eyebrows knit together. Cas didn't look at her when he spoke. "I'll be a little out of sorts when we arrive," he answered curtly. Sam glanced down at his twin, who looked frustrated. Sam looked back at Cas, who still refused to look at Alex. Sam frowned a little, his instincts telling him something, maybe some kind of fight or something, was going on between these two.

He didn't have time to wonder. Cas's fingers were coming toward his head—and then suddenly, the motel room was gone.

Sam almost fell over as the ground beneath his feet changed and then everything else, too—beside him Alex grabbed onto him and they steadied each other as Sam looked around, disoriented. They were standing in the middle of a street, and a loud horn blared behind them alarmingly close—the three Winchesters whirled as a car screeched to a halt, almost hitting them. "Get out of the street!" the driver of the car shouted.

"Watch where you're going!" Alex shouted back, making a rude gesture in his general direction even as Sam pulled her toward the sidewalk. "Guys!" Dean barked, and Sam stopped short as a second car almost ran them over, jerking to a stop, almost knocking Sam over when the bumper hit his leg. The driver looked at them like they were crazy, and Sam awkwardly shrugged, mouthed 'sorry!' and stumbled forward when Alex pushed him along, trying to get them out of the street.

The three of them made it to the sidewalk, disoriented. "Ah, geez," Alex panted, looking around, scanning the area, a hand to the side of her head. She looked worried and confused, and then she asked what Sam was wondering—"Where's Cas?"

"I don't know," he said breathlessly, seeing no sign of the guy. "Did we make it?" Sam looked around, a little befuddled.

"Unless they're bringing Pintos back into production," Dean said, pointing at one of the cars, "I, uh, I'd say yes."

"Oh my God!" Alex suddenly exclaimed, gone still staring in shock or maybe fear—her brothers both followed her gaze to see Castiel, collapsed against the side of a car a few feet away. He looked barely conscious at first glance. "Cas!" Sam exclaimed, already hurrying over—he dropped into a crouch, grabbing onto Cas, who looked like he might fall over any second. "Hey, hey, _hey_!"

Dean and Alex were already on either side of Sam—Dean kind of bent over, Alex had fallen to her knees, was grabbing Cas's arm, saying his name in a voice awash in worry. The angel, usually so aloof and composed, appeared woozy, in pain, disoriented. He was gazing at Sam's twin, looking dazed. Blood ran down out of his nose. "Take it easy, take it easy," Dean commanded gruffly, looked at him intently, worried. "Are you all right?"

Looking anything but, Cas frowned in pain at nowhere in particular. "I'm fine," he said. "I'm—much better than I expected." Sam was surprised to hear that—this seemed pretty bad to be 'much better than expected.' He made to start helping Cas up, but without warning, Cas coughed violently, gagging up blood, and went slack, his eyes rolling back in his head. He pitched sideways, and would have fallen over completely if Sam and Alex hadn't mutually caught him by the shoulder. "Cas… _Cas_!" Alex stared at him, eyes wide, but got no response. She looked at Sam, wide-eyed. "Did he—did he just _pass out_?" She looked at Dean, aghast. "Is that even _possible_?" She looked at Cas again, who had brilliant red blood dripping out of the side of his mouth. "Angels don't pass out! Do they?" She sounded freaked out.

Sam put a hand in front of Cas's mouth, checking for breathing. It was there. "Well, he's breathing. _Sort _of."

Alex held the pads of her pointer and middle finger there against Cas's neck for a couple seconds. "Pulse seems normal," she said, but she didn't sound too relieved. "A little out of sorts my _ass_." She muttered. She almost sounded pissed, underneath all the worry.

Sam sat back slightly, unsure, looked at Dean, who had straightened up and was looking around in a disconcerted way. "What do we do?" Sam asked him.

"Hell if I know!" was the immediate response. Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't have _time _for this, man." He let go of his nose and huffed a frustrated breath, then turned and walked off a few steps. Annoyed, Sam muttered an 'I'll be back' to Alex and got up, followed Dean. Cas remained unmoving where he'd lost consciousness, with Alex holding him up, peering at him anxiously.

"Okay Dean, we need to figure this out, _now_," Sam said.

"I know, I _know_," Dean said, overwhelmed, unable to stop pacing. He grabbed his own chin, looking totally clueless, his eyes scanning the area kind of desperately. And then, his eyes stopped. Sam looked where Dean was looking—The Prairie Court Motel. Sam looked at Dean, not understanding. Dean however, clapped his hands together once, decisively. "Okay, here's what we do. We put Back to the Future over there up in a motel, safe and sound where he can sleep off this—_whatever_—while we go gank Anna."

"Leave him _alone_?" Sam asked, a little surprised at Dean's idea.

"Well the other choice is just a _little_ inconvenient, Sammy," Dean said a low, tense voice, starting to sound defensive and backed into a corner. "I don't got time to drag around a big unconscious dude, do you?"

Sam made a face. "No but… you're saying we leave our ticket out of here… _behind_?" Dean made a face of his own at Sam's question. "Cas likes to disappear on us when he's, you know, _lucid._ What if he wakes up and forgets we're here or—" Sam stopped, he could speculate forever, and there just wasn't time. He refocused to his main point. "We can't leave him, Dean. It's a bad idea."

"And we can't take him with, either," Dean argued, getting more impatient by the second. "So what choice does that leave us?"

Sam gave a frustrated huff, glanced toward where Cas and Alex were—then paused, the perfect idea striking him. "Alex can stay with him!" He said, a little animated, not believing he hadn't thought of it already. "Make sure he doesn't wander off when he wakes up!" He paused, looked back at the angel, suddenly a little bleak as he considered._ "If _he wakes up."

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," Dean said darkly, and Sam felt himself raise an eyebrow slightly. Was Dean seriously still on this whole keeping Cas and Alex apart thing? "Dean," he said, deadpan. "_Get over_ yourself." He got an evil eye from his brother, but just rolled his eyes. "You're making a big deal out of _nothing_—even if you thought Cas might try something—and that is a _huge_ if—does he look like he's up to doing something like that any time soon?" Dean looked at Sam unhappily, then in Cas and Alex's direction.

"I mean, just _look_ at them, Sam!" Dean hissed, jabbing his hand out demonstratively. Sam looked—all he saw was Alex supporting a passed-out Cas while looking concerned.

"What?" he asked, looking back at Dean oddly. "All I see is Alex and her_ friend _Cas who she's worried about. Who is also _super unconscious_ at the moment."

Dean responded by clamping his lips into a thin line. Sam just looked at him calmly. "I'm right about this Dean. And you're being a little bitch."

"Am not," Dean muttered, then cut his eyes sharply to Sam, narrowing them slightly. He seemed to have thought of something, folded his arms, suddenly giving off an air of superiority. "Anna's after _you_ Sam—maybe I should leave _you_ here with Cas, huh?"

Sam's expression fell in exasperation. Dean couldn't just let it go. Of course not. Sam huffed. "_No_, Anna's after Mom and Dad now, she doesn't even know I'm here. And, I mean, think about it. Alex will be safer here, right?" That last part got Dean's attention, just like Sam knew it would—they looked at each other significantly. If there was anything they would always agree on, it was that they wanted their little sister to be safe. Speaking of, she had noticed them exchanging words and had left Cas propped against the car, was walking over, looking at them with a terse expression.

"What are you two arguing about _now_?" she asked shortly.

Dean spoke up before Sam could. "Sam here wants you to stay behind and babysit Cas while we go do all the fun stuff."

"We need to make sure he doesn't disappear on us while we go take care of Anna," Sam explained, quickly following up Dean's statement.

Alex's eyes flickered between the two of them for a long beat, her expression unreadable. "So... I'm automatically the one who stays behind while you guys run off and save Mom and Dad, face down a rogue angel who's after Sam, risk your asses and possibly get killed in the process?"

Dean looked at Sam, his expression suggesting Sam was done for. Sam pressed his mouth downward in a kind of shrug, briefly as he tried to appear nonchalant. "Uh, basically."

Alex glanced back at Cas, pausing, then looked back at them. She looked kind of unsure. "You guys _need_ me on this one," she said.

"Yes, we do—to make sure our time machine doesn't go AWHOL," Sam said, trying to appeal to her sensibility. Instead, she just folded her arms, looked at him appraisingly, challengingly. "Okay, well, why can't _you_ stay? You're the one Anna is after, right?"

Sam pressed his lips into a thin line—this was his _favorite thing_, when it turned into a sibling rivalry contest. Dean looked at Sam, as if to say 'see? I was right.' Sam took in a long breath to keep his patience. "I can't stay because _I_ am _going_," Sam insisted, looking at Dean pointedly, then Alex. She looked incredibly annoyed with him. Sam huffed, tried again. "Okay, here's another idea: _Dean_ stays with Cas."

Dean looked at Sam as though he'd suggested Backstreet Boys were real musicians. "Hell no!" he retorted. "I'm the oldest and I'm _going_, that's final."

Sam let out a deep breath through his nose. "Okay, then by _that _logic, Alex is the youngest, and _she _stays."

"Youngest by one minute and forty-seven seconds, Sam!" Alex protested, giving him a look. "That doesn't even count!"

Dean had his hand on the side of his head and chopped it down through the air, looking like he was approaching his wit's end. "Look you two morons, at this point, I don't care which of the two of you stays!" he thundered. "Time's wasting—Anna could have killed both Mom and Dad by now and have time left over to go catch tonight's episode of The Bob Newhart Show." He looked from Alex to Sam, irked. "You two are getting on my last damn nerve."

"Feelings mutual," Alex told him, and got a glare from Dean in response. He looked at Sam, who was currently very unhappy about the standoff. "Okay, look," Dean muttered, "you two settle this the old fashioned way and we're done and moving on, end of story." He waited about one second then jerked both hands up at them. "_Today, _guys!"

Alex and Sam looked at each other, reluctant. Sam raised his eyebrows at her challengingly, and she just made a 'not impressed' face back at him. Sam raised his fist, cradled in his palm, and she mirrored him, looking at him tersely.

They didn't need a countdown or go signal—in unison, they started. One, two, three times they hit their own palms, and then, on the fourth count, Sam held his hand flat—paper—and Alex kept her hand in a fist—rock. Sam's face broke into a triumphant grin and he covered her fist in his hand. "Paper beats rock!"

Alex made a frustrated sound. "Yeah, okay," she said, nodding grudgingly. "I can accept defeat." She let out a gusty sigh, diffident. "You a-holes really owe me one for this." Sam noticed that she didn't sound _that_ mad though, just kind of apprehensive. Dean, however, seemed to be over the entire thing, antsy and ready to get going.

"Yeah, whatever, let's get you two checked in so we can get this show on the road," he said, already striding back toward Cas. Sam looked at Alex, who was looking at Cas with a weird expression. He thought it was worry, which made sense. He knew she really cared about the guy—it was her guardian angel after all, why wouldn't she? Alex seemed to sense her twin's eyes on her, and looked at him petulantly, which only entertained Sam.

"Hey, don't act like you hate it so much," he teased in a low tone, grinning as he nudged her. He got an 'I hate you' face from her in return.

* * *

Alex ran the washcloth under hot tap water, not sure she believed what was happening right now. Sam and Dean were already gone—they had basically checked her in a couple minutes ago, thrown Cas down on the bed and then left in a huge hurry—but not before Dean had told her they would call by ten o'clock to check in _or_ be back that night—and if not, to come looking. So here Alex was, in 1978, holed up in a quiet motel room with an injured angel… but that wasn't even the best part. As odds would have it, the only room available at the motel was the honeymoon suite…. and when they said honeymoon suite, they meant it.

The room was covered in cheesy red heart motifs and there were several crappy paintings of red roses displayed across the wood panel walls. There was a cheap bottle of complimentary champagne set on the dresser, no ice or anything though—beside it sat two slender toasting glasses with gold hearts etched on them. There was a heart shaped tub in the bathroom, a little sculpture of cupid aiming a bow and arrow on the bedside table, and a stupid plaque hanging above the bed that said 'Love Conquers All.' In short, the room was ridiculous. Finished wetting the cloth, Alex rung it out and exited the bathroom. She'd had seen some corny motel rooms in her day, but this one took the cake.

However, she wasn't really so much focused on the room decor as she was the guy on the bed. Laid flat and unmoving, Cas looked just the same as when Dean and Sam had left—unresponsive and out cold. She paused a second, the sight of him like that halting her completely, scaring her all over again. Seeing him so messed up and out of it was really chilling. And somehow, the blanket he laid on (which, of course, was a tacky heart print) seemed put there to insult her or taunt her. He looked so handsome there, like he could have been sleeping. Well, except for the horrifying streaks of blood across his lower face.

Alex shook herself, gingerly sat on the edge of the bed, one leg folded under her as she leaned over him carefully, steadying herself with the light touch of her palm to his chest. Seeing him like that, blood drying underneath his nose, at the edge of his mouth... she felt almost sick. He hadn't been telling the truth about how bad off the time travel would leave him, the_ idiot_. And now she was left not knowing _if _he'd recover—_when_ he'd wake up—or if he'd be okay _at all_. Was this some kind of angel coma? Or the equivalent of hitting his head hard? How long would this last for? Would he be permanently damaged? And then, a more chilling thought… was this him losing his 'angel mojo' like he'd talked about in 2014?

There was no way to tell, not yet, so she didn't need to get herself completely bent out of shape over it. She felt powerless to do anything except clean him up a little, but since that was the only option, that's what she did. With her palm still pressed against his chest, her free hand began to carefully dab the washcloth at the blood that ran down from his nose. Alex reflected momentarily about how she just wasn't sure about this. Part of her was really screaming in frustration at being 'left behind' as her brothers went and hopefully stopped Anna from killing Mom and Dad… but… on the other hand, she really couldn't feel _too_ upset, because honestly, being here when Cas woke up, making sure he was okay—that felt important to her, too. More than important.

Still, Alex's mind went back to the other perspective—she could be out there, helping her brothers stop a crazy angel from murdering her parents, one of which she'd never even known at all. As soon as Dean had demanded Cas take them back to 1978, Alex had been struck by the frightening and intriguing thought of meeting her mom. But the weird thing was, she didn't know if she even _wanted_ to—she had spent her whole life not knowing the woman, having no memories of her at all, only a couple of crappy photographs, some stories and nice sounding hand-me-down memories from Dean, who _did_ remember her. So the idea of actually meeting Mom; putting a real, living, breathing face to the name… was huge and scary. In the deepest parts of her heart, Alex felt that it was easier to write Mom off as a woman in a grainy photo than a real human being—not knowing Mom made it almost painless to exist without her. Just thinking that made Alex feel really crappy about herself. Mary Winchester would be ashamed to know her daughter was that shallow and heartless and afraid.

And then there was the thought of seeing Dad again. She wasn't sure if she could handle seeing him again, in any context. She remembered when he died. He'd told Dean and Sam goodbye, privately, separately. But hadn't said anything to her at all. Maybe he'd been waiting for the right opportunity that never came, maybe he just had died before he got the chance, or maybe he had been too afraid to talk to her. He had never talked to her much. He had never liked having one-sided conversations, which you tended to have with a mute person—and he'd never 'gotten' her like Sam and Dean had. He'd always looked at her with this kind of veiled, stand-offish look in his eyes. She remembered trying so hard to make him proud. She'd learned to shoot straighter, draw faster, load quicker than her brothers. She'd memorized sigils and wards and spells, more than Sam and Dean had. But he'd never done what she'd wanted him to do: just look at her with nothing but pride and joy. He'd been proud of her some days, he'd sometimes laughed at the purposefully funny things she'd done or said. He'd patted her shoulder a few times in approval. But it had always felt like he were holding back. Secretly looking at her with intense disproval and disappointment. And then, there were the nights he'd drink too much, get angry.

She didn't want to see Dad again, she realized. And she didn't know how to feel about that.

She thought about what Dean said about setting things right—he wanted to warn their parents about Azazel, stop the nursery fire, Mom dying, everything. What if he did, and _what if it worked_? It would change literally everything. Alex pictured herself living a life where she possessed a voice, had two parents who worked normal jobs. She pictured herself living in one house, going to one school. Having Christmases at home and always knowing where she'd be falling asleep come night time. Making cookies for bake sales and having a mom who would braid her hair and teach her how to talk to boys. Alex would be scared of guns and knives like most other girls, be squeamish at the sight of blood. She'd go to prom and get excited about turning sixteen and subscribe to shallow magazines about fashion and celebrities—she'd spend time complaining about minimum wage and how her MP3 player was a piece of crap—she'd have a dad who was proud of her, smiled at her with his eyes, _talked with her_. They would never even have a clue about the horrible, wrecked life they could have had instead. She imagined all of this and even though parts of it sounded completely amazing and perfect, it was so far removed from the life she now lived—it just set her at unease, felt wrong. Especially when she drew back a little and looked at Cas. If Dean changed the nursery, it would change this, too. It would mean she never met Castiel, probably. She was really disturbed by that thought, honestly.

She'd finished wiping the blood away from under his nose and moved onto the blood streaked at the edge of his mouth, slowly tracing the washcloth into the corner crease of his lips. She had to hold his face steady at this point with her other hand. Underneath her palm, his jawline felt rough from stubble. She realized the only sound in the quiet room was of his deep, steady breathing, and her eyes darted to his chest, which rose and fell rhythmically underneath her hand. She refocused.

She'd cleaned Dean and Sam up a million times, but this was totally different, and oddly enough, left her feeling insanely vulnerable. Maybe it was just being in such close physical proximity to him. Alex realized how she was looking at him now,_ really looking_ at him for, well, maybe the first time ever. His piercing gazes had always sent her eyes skittering away, but now, with him at a complete lack of consciousness… her eyes flickered around his face, first resting on his long, dark eyelashes, then the soft crease where his lips met each other, then the hollow of his cheekbone. She had ceased moving now. The scruff of his five o'clock shadow. The cleft of his chin, the graceful line of his jaw. The little dark curls of shaggy hair behind his ears. The weirdly beautiful vertical lines across his lips. The little, barely noticeable wrinkles along the ridge of his nose. The uneven line where his dark, messy hair met his forehead… the crazy rebel tuft of hair sticking up on the top of his head. She smoothed that down gently, haltingly, looked at his face again—brushed his hair back from his forehead without thinking. An unnecessary action. But she had done it anyway. She looked at his lips again. She could hear another sound in the room now—herself, breathing a little harder than what was normal, because she was unintentionally remembering the kiss from 2014—she was filled with guilt and remorse—and yet, longing for more of the same.

Chagrined, Alex made a couple last gentle swipes of the washcloth, trying not to look at him. His face was clean now, free of blood, and Alex sat back a minute, quiet, eyeing him from the corner of her eye. _Now what? I'm a little rusty on angel first aid_. She checked his pulse again, fingers to his neck—it was normal, and his skin was warm, smooth. She hesitated, pulling her hand away into her lap, watching him carefully for any change. But he didn't move at all, didn't make a sound. She had to make herself stand up.

Alex got up and tossed the bloody washcloth into the trash, then turned around, folded her arms, looked at Cas apprehensively, not sure what to do. She found herself staring at the plain black dress shoes on his feet. They weren't scuffed or dull at all, they looked brand new. _How did he do that?_ She remembered the first time she'd seen him that she, Dean, and Bobby had shot him up pretty good, but the next time she'd seen him, he was in the exact same outfit—mysteriously sans bullet holes. Since then, she'd gathered that he seemed to be able to regenerate his clothes. That, or he had a magical heavenly closet somewhere with an endless supply of the same outfit. Hmm. And that… didn't seem likely. _Regeneration it is. _But if he had the power to alter his appearance like that, it struck her as a little odd that he chose to remain in the same, ordinary things. Something he'd told her, long ago, popped into her mind. _I like this coat,_ he'd said. She smiled softly in response—he'd shown up in her dreams trying to be helpful and had only succeeded in pissing her off—so, of course, she'd picked a fight with him, trying to keep him at arms length. She'd been so unsure about him. She'd _hated _him in some moments, for goodness sake. She continued to watch Cas, sobering. Things had changed so much since then.

She sat down on the edge of the bed again, fixing where one of the lapels of his coat had turned inwards. She thought of how the trench coat—the cheap suit—the crappy ten dollar tie—the things he wore were so ordinary, so everyday, so unlike everything Castiel was: powerful, surprising, a lightning storm contained in a glass bottle. But, she reminded herself with a sudden note of somberness—that the clothing, the messy hair, the now-familiar face—that was Jimmy Novak, or at least it _had_ been, once—the things she had come to identify as Cas, were not really Cas at all, were they? She was struck with a pang of guilt, thinking of Jimmy, wondering what had happened to him, if he were still in there somewhere. Until a couple years ago, this guy had been an average joe. And now he was like some kind of angelic iPhone case, _if_ he was still in there at all… but Alex remembered then what Castiel had said to Jimmy before re-possessing him last year… he'd made it sound like Jimmy would always be there somewhere deep inside. A strange, troubling thought.

She recalled Jimmy begging Castiel to take him again, for _good_, and Cas telling him, basically, prepare to suffer for it. So was Jimmy still in there, conscious and suffering, overwhelmed by the weight of a crushing angelic being that inhabited his every atom? It was difficult to look at Cas... Jimmy... whoever he was... and not have a lot of conflicted, confused thoughts. And it was getting harder and harder to really even separate the two in her mind. She'd only seen Jimmy for like a day, and Cas for so much longer… but still, she was wondering something about herself: Was she attracted to the being Castiel was, or the physical appearance of Jimmy? It wasn't that simple, but… well, it didn't really matter, Alex reminded herself, as there was clearly nothing coming from it... it just would have been nice to have one less crazy unanswered question floating around in the insane asylum she called her brain.

She rubbed her forehead with the palm of her head, pacing a little now. This whole situation was so screwed up. She had messed up so friggin' bad hadn't she? God, maybe it would be better if Cas just stayed knocked out this whole time, however long it took Dean and Sam to return. Because if he woke up and started treating her weird again, she wasn't sure if she could take it. It sucked to have Cas skirting her like she was the plague. Grimly, she thought of this one girl Courtney that Sam had been good friends with in seventh grade—best friends, really... until Courtney told him that she liked him, wanted to be his girlfriend. Sam, definitely _not _on the same wavelength, had been totally skeeved out and had started avoiding her at all costs because it was so awkward for him, and he didn't want it _at all_. The friendship had fallen apart into nothing. In middle school, who cares, no big deal. But... wow. Alex was the Courtney in this situation. She felt embarrassed about the revelation. She would take back the hand touch thing in a heartbeat if she'd known it was going to ruin whatever they were before. She stopped pacing, looked sidelong at Cas's still form. _Friends_. They had been friends. And that should have been enough for her.

Miserable, Alex tried not to notice how Cas's clothes were too big. His white dress shirt, especially, kind of stuck out, bunched up. His trousers, however, laid flat against him, and she could see, vaguely, the taper and angle of his hips underneath. She swallowed, uncomfortable, needing to look anywhere but at Cas—still, her eyes wandered to his hands, which laid still beside him. Rough, large, warm, strong. Those hands had healed her, held her, literally wiped tears off of her face—those hands had snapped handcuffs onto her one year... ripped handcuffs off of her the next. She thought of the irony of that. How when she first met Cas, he'd had zero problem leaving her cuffed in the basement at Bobby's. And then, roughly a year later, how he'd savagely torn another pair off, the most upset she'd ever seen him. It made sense though, seeing as they had been put there by Lucifer and all.

She shivered a little at the thought of Lucifer, remembering when he'd shoved her to get a rise out of Castiel. She was troubled, and it wasn't so much the assault as it was the way Cas had reacted. He'd looked positively _murderous _when the devil slammed her against the wall—Cas had drawn himself to his full height looking ready to destroy everything in his path, practically seething. And Lucifer had said, softly, far too close to Alex… "Look. How protective he is of you." As if he were _pleased _with the display, like it was something that fascinated him. He'd almost sounded _triumphant—_but why? Cas was her guardian angel, right? Wasn't he _supposed_ to be protective? She actually had begun to think about this very idea a lot the past couple of weeks—that maybe _that _was the exact reason why she'd gotten so confused about Cas and his feelings toward her. She'd thought that the way he looked at her, his attentiveness and care were because of romantic feelings or emotions. She got it now—she'd made the mistake of looking at it from a human perspective. He had some kind of profound, deeply rooted bond to her because he was her guardian angel. She'd made the mistake of assuming things—that, paired with what had happened in 2014... she'd just been dumb. It was obvious that whatever she and future Castiel had in 2014 was because he was human.

_Really, Alex… thinking an angel could fall in love with you_. She'd laugh at herself if it wasn't so frigging pathetic. She had seriously been reading too many romance novels. They were starting to melt her brain.

Alex stopped pacing, tried to get her head straight. She needed to stop mooning around like an angsty teenager and get to work preparing for the worst. If Anna showed up here, Alex wanted to be ready. It seemed highly unlikely, but it never hurt to be ready for a worst case scenario in her experience. She shrugged her jacket off and tossed it toward the heart-shaped coat knobs dotting the wall beside the door—the jacket totally missed but she didn't care. She had caught sight of herself in the mirror above the dresser. She looked so plain, so tired, so haggard to herself. She combed her fingers halfheartedly through the hair on the left side of her head, realized it was a lost cause and looked away, back at Cas, pensive. Then, drew her hunting knife out of the sheath on her belt, shoved the sleeve of her flannel shirt up a little bit. Holding her arm out in front of herself, she took a deep, reluctant breath—this was always the worst—then sliced into the skin there, suppressing a pained sound as blood flowed out of the cut. Satisfied with the blood flow, Alex re-sheathed her knife and went over to the bed again.

On the wall above the bedside table, Alex began to fingerpaint her blood, the strokes forming the angel warding sigil. She'd added this symbol into her mental catalogue of wards a long time ago, basically the first time she'd seen it. Funny how drawings and shapes combined _just so_ could save your life, trap a demon, send a spirit into the void.

Finished with the sigil, Alex washed her hands and grabbed a dry washcloth from the bathroom and held it against her bleeding arm, leaned against the bathroom doorway a minute, waiting for the blood flow to stop, looking at Cas. He looked so peaceful. She wondered if he would dream, and if he did, what it would be. She smiled softly at the sudden thought that _she_ was watching over her guardian angel. And then promptly stopped herself. These were more of her ridiculous romance-novel influenced thoughts.

The sound of silence was ringing in her ears all over again, and Alex let out a soft, frustrated breath of air. Mind turning to worry about Sam and Dean all over again. If they screwed this up, got themselves hurt or killed, she would _murder_ them. Getting exasperated with herself, the silent room, the noisy barrage of thoughts, Alex looked around, restless. She definitely couldn't just sit here and stare at Cas all day, and she couldn't stew in silence about Sam, Dean, Mom, Dad, life... she needed a distraction, stat. She tossed the washcloth away, went and switched the television on—it was ancient, the kind with wood panels on either side of the screen, and it had an antennae the size of a fish tank on top of it. Only one channel came in, and on it, some movie she'd never seen before. The picture quality was pretty horrible.

"_I tell you this as an artist, I think you'll understand,"_ a young Christopher Walken was saying to an even younger Diane Keaton—who was dressed really oddly, kind of butchy or hipster maybe. _"Sometimes when I'm driving... on the road at night…" _he said,_ "I see two headlights coming toward me. Fast. I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly, head-on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion. The sound of shattering glass. The... flames rising out of the flowing gasoline."_

Oh geez. Well _that_ was optimistic. Alex was not amused with her luck. This looked like a great movie to watch while she was already kind of depressed. But, at the very least, it was some background noise to distract her from everything else. She sat cross-legged on the far edge of the bed at a respectable distance from Cas. Close enough to keep an eye on him, make sure he was still breathing. She glanced at the cut on her arm, where the blood was beginning to clot, then absently rubbed an eye, thinking an IV drip of coffee would be nice right now because she was _so frigging tired_. She looked back at the TV screen unseeingly, staring. She didn't want to fall asleep—because every time she did, the nightmare, the one she'd had for weeks now, consumed her.

* * *

_"Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?"_ Castiel heard a soft masculine voice speaking somewhere nearby. It was dark—his eyes were closed—what was happening? And then he remembered bringing the Winchesters back to 1978, then collapsing... _"__Oh, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do," _the voice continued, as Cas, eyes still closed, realized how weak his vessel was. Hazily, he was recalling performing the locating spell to find Anna, then he remembered his conversation with her in the warehouse. His eyes snapped open, his pulse suddenly rocketed. He remembered _everything_. His eyes darted back and forth, staring widely at the dark ceiling above. The things Anna had shown him about the future clambered loudly for attention, sent his entire vessel into a panicked and confused state. He heard the same male voice speaking still nearby, but didn't catch the words, his ears buzzing loudly.

Unsure where he was or what had happened—he seemed to be inside some kind of room now, and on a bed—he looked to his left—and promptly froze. Within arms reach, Alex laid on her side, facing him, eyes closed, her form still. Her head was resting on her arm, her knees were drawn up toward her chest. If he hadn't seen her shoulder slowly moving down and then back up as she breathed, he had been a fraction of a second from believing she was dead—the memory of seeing her lifeless body covered in blood was still so fresh and pervasive in his mind that seeing her still there beside him had somehow convinced him, just for a moment, that Alex really was dead.

But she was alive—and asleep—beside him. Cas let out a breath he hadn't realized had been held, then was suddenly struck by the realization that they seemed to be alone—where were Sam and Dean? He looked around the room briefly, wincing against the pain and difficulty of raising his neck four inches off of the bed. He was immediately confused by the overwhelming barrage of strange, red decorations that covered the dim room. He could see that the television was on. It was kind of dim in the room, the bedside table light on—they were in a motel room of some kind. He couldn't hold his head up any longer, and gave up.

He looked back at Alex, the strangest and most overwhelming combination of emotions overcoming him. In the most literal sense, he felt he couldn't _take_ these sensations and thoughts. They violently ricocheted around in his head, spilling over each other and multiplying; and they were too much to bear or carry—Cas wanted to grab his head in his hands and silence it all, just make it _stop_. But his arms were too weak to move, and even if he could move them, there was a terrible suspicion inside that no physical action on his part could ever quell this chaos inside of him—the noise in his mind wouldn't stop or end. He seemed to have no choice but to lay there, lost in despairing, horrified thoughts.

He could barely understand what Anna had shown him. He had _seen_ it—taken it in—but couldn't _comprehend_ it all. He'd seen a future where a fallen, human version of himself and this woman beside him had been together and very obviously in love—he understood little of the intricacies of being human, but he had known that with certainty. He was once again feeling his breath shortening as he wondered _how_. Castiel had watched humans since the dawn of time but hadn't ever imagined himself being capable of taking part in being one. He hadn't ever thought he would be anything but a servant of God and Heaven. But in this supposedly certain future, he had fallen from grace and together with this human girl beside him forged a new life... shared a home... created a _child_… Castiel blinked rapidly, eyebrows knit together. His heartbeat was fast and he could feel it in his throat. He heard the television, still, but the voices and music were muffled because he was so unfocused. He had created a _child_, with _her_. That thought was even more confusing and bewildering than the rest, and he couldn't confront it, not yet. It was much too much.

He watched Alex closely as she continued to sleep. He felt such fierce protectiveness and desperation rise in him at the same time, quickly followed by shame and fear about the future. He heard the sound of an echoing gunshot, saw her dying moments flash across his mind. Could that really be where the future would take them? He didn't want to believe it. He thought of everything else briefly—Dean's cold and heartless demeanor, Lucifer walking the earth in the flesh, the Croatoan virus all but destroying the world. But none of it seemed as awful as the knowledge that he could be responsible for Alex's death. Not only her death. But the death of the small, new life within her—again, the thought of the child overwhelmed him, and he sent it away. It wasn't difficult, because he was lost in so many other nightmarish thoughts. The thought that he could hurt Alex in any small way inspired endless horror and intense fear like he'd never felt before. He could never, never let that version of the future happen. _All roads lead to the same destination._ He'd said this to Dean, once. Now Castiel didn't want to believe that, because if it were true... what Anna how shown him was inevitable. In that moment, Castiel swore to himself that he would find a way to make sure what he saw never happened. Even if he had to kill himself.

_"Sin from thy lips? Oh trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again." _The man on the television said, sounding deeply emotional and affected. Cas glanced down with his eyes, just beside his right foot, where he could just see a couple on the screen kissing passionately. The sight of it made him think of the kiss he had witnessed between the Alex beside him now and the Castiel of the future. Quickly after the shock of witnessing such a passionate and sexual kiss, a dark, foreign feeling shimmered through him. He wasn't entirely sure what it was. Why had she done that? And moreover, why hadn't she told him about it? He felt lied to, and foolish, as her strange behavior toward him when she'd gotten back from 2014 now made sense. He wanted to be angry that she hadn't told him about the kiss—but then, in quiet realization, he thought perhaps he had no right to think she owed him an explanation. Still, he couldn't brush aside the feelings of anger and betrayal. And confusion. And, he realized in surprise—_hurt_.

Offhandedly he thought maybe that was why she had kissed him so readily in the panic room… because she had done it before. He felt a sudden surge of loathing and hatred toward that angel-turned-man who had fallen apart, gotten Alex killed, then had the audacity to involve 2009 Alex and _touch_ her like that. Castiel didn't recognize that man as himself. He didn't understand, at all; was left feeling empty and bitter. But then his mind turned to the knowledge of how he had taken the memory of the panic room from her. Stilling, ashamed, he thought cynically that perhaps this is what the humans meant by 'irony.' She had hidden something from him—and he had taken something else from her. They were 'even,' weren't they? So why did it feel so awful?

He remembered seeing her and Dean right after he'd whisked them out of Zachariah's clutches. He'd immediately, instinctively picked up on the fact that something was wrong with Alex, but hadn't known what. He'd asked her about it. She had sidestepped. He'd asked again. She'd insisted she was fine, but the way she'd looked at him… he hadn't believed her. He remembered standing there beside a busy street, later that night alone, hands in his pockets. Wondering about what she'd seen in this dark future that had rattled her so thoroughly. Dean had promised to explain it and had, a few days later when Cas went to see Dean in the privacy of a dream. Dean _hadn't _told him how he had discovered Cas was the reason Alex died in the future. So many lies and half-truths. So now Cas was wondering what exactly had shaken Alex so deeply: The kiss? Did the future Castiel tell her about her death? Was she shaken up because of how hopeless and desolate the future of the world was? The sight of her brother Sam, possessed by Lucifer?

His anger faded into a deep sadness and frustration as he realized that if Alex _had_ told him about the kiss, he wouldn't have known how to react, what to say or do. He wouldn't have understood, not then. She had probably known that. He pondered. Perhaps the kiss in 2014 was bothering her in the same way that he was bothered by what he had done in the panic room. He couldn't know—she carried so much sadness with her, and sometimes, he thought perhaps she was cracking under the weight of it all.

He looked at her thoroughly now, turning his head slightly toward her. She often looked so weary and burdened, but right now, her face was relaxed and peaceful, soft, free of worries if only temporarily. He had studied her face countless times before, but never tired of the discourse. During his existence he'd observed innumerable humans, but none of their faces drew him like hers did. He didn't even know why. How many other women possessed similar features? And yet, there was no one in existence now or ever who was as oddly captivating as Alex was to Castiel.

She was a fleeting being, fragile and transient. When he thought of her in comparison to his world of Heaven and eternity, she seemed so small and powerless. She should have been meaningless, but she wasn't. Not to him. He thought of it for a moment, he, a thousands of years old celestial being. Her, a fleeting, mortal blip on the timeline of eternity. But she seemed realer and grander to him than the Sistine Chapel or the Garden of Eden or Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

He loved the barely-noticeable freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose and the slightly mismatched shape of her eyebrows and the uneven arc of her hairline, the flyaway hairs that never seemed to be tamed… the sight of her eyelashes dark and fanning out against fair skin… he'd counted their number before. He was smiling softly now, unaware. His eyes ran from the point of her chin up the swoop of her angular jaw, then flicked over to the soft pink lips that were parted just slightly—and then he felt guilt crash over him like a wave breaks over a rock, and his smile faded.

Still, he couldn't look away. And when he _realized _he couldn't look away, he felt the sensation of panicked worry eating at him from inside. He_ needed to be distant_ from her, far away, because being close to her made him weak and vulnerable in the strangest of ways and in turn endangered her. He _knew_ if he could stay far away, if he could let their relationship be resigned to a few interactions per year… he would keep her safe from that future where they were in love, broken, and doomed. But despite his convictions and his recent attempts to keep them apart, fate seemed to be determined to push them together. Like now. He literally couldn't move his vessel, it was so weakened. And she was right beside him, looking so small and sweet and he remembered how it had felt to hold her close against him, how she had rested her head against his shoulder there in Gabriel's hell world. And in quick succession, he remembered how he'd seen her lay her head on his shoulder in the future, right before they had approached that farmhouse… horror rippled through him again, as intense as before.

Alex shifted then in her sleep, moving her arm slightly—Cas froze at the sight of a streak of bright red blood there—and then immediately reached out a weak, shaking hand and gently turned her wrist toward him, trying to see where the blood was coming from. He could see a cut, clearly self-inflicted there on her forearm, partially covered by her halfway rolled up flannel shirt sleeve. It looked like it wasn't bleeding anymore, but that didn't matter much to Cas—why had she cut herself to begin with? He looked around—then saw it. She'd drawn an angel-warding sigil there, beside the bed on the wall. He relaxed, just a little, but felt largely unhappy. She should have taken _his_ blood to do that, not hers.

She stirred suddenly, frowned a little in her sleep, then made a soft sound, like in pain. Castiel went still, unsure what was happening. Again, she whimpered, and becoming concerned, Cas touched her arm, said her name. Her eyes shot open and she was was suddenly gasping, eyes wide and darting around, momentarily confused. Then she saw him and stopped moving. "Cas?" she seemed disoriented.

They looked at each other for three very long seconds, then Alex was sitting up, perturbed, looking around like she was dazed. "Did I fall asleep?" It seemed to be a rhetorical question, because she squinted at her watch, then went wide-eyed. "For… geez, three hours?!"

She grimaced, rubbed her forehead, looking distressed. Cas watched her from where he laid. "Were you dreaming just now?" he asked.

She turned her attention to him, then frowned a little, eyes darting away. "Uh, yeah, I think." Cas waited, his forehead wrinkled, for further explanation. But she shook her head, acting like it didn't matter. "It's nothing." She then looked at him pointedly, turned back toward him, tilted her head the side just slightly, eyebrows close together in concern. "Are you okay?" she looked him up and down, assessing him. "What happened to you?"

It was shameful to be stuck laying flat on the bed, unable to move much, her so high above him. He felt foolish. "My vessel isn't as strong without heaven's power behind it." He explained, not able to keep his face from showing his discomfort about that fact. He paused. "I... don't think I can even sit up at this point."

"Damn," Alex commented. She looked worried. "You'll be all right though?"

He wondered if she were worried about getting back to her year, or about him. "Eventually," he answered. She looked kind of unsure about his answer. "Where are Sam and Dean?" Cas asked, and she swung her legs around toward him, sitting cross legged. She looked unhappy at his question, cracking her knuckles in distraction. "Gone after Anna."

"They left you here with me?" Cas asked, frowning slightly, not sure if he understood why, or how Dean would allow that.

"_Someone_ needed to keep an eye on you," she said, shrugging lightly, giving him a very small smile. Cas let out a heavy breath, grim, regretful. "I shouldn't have listened to Dean. I should have come alone," he muttered. "Traveling with passengers… it's weakened me. I'm all but useless." It was highly dangerous that they were here in 1978 and he couldn't protect them against Anna. Alex just gave him a look when he said that he was useless, like she was unhappy he would say such a thing. She didn't say anything about it though. Asked him, "Do you want to sit up?"

He frowned deeply. "I can manage it myself." He lifted his neck, shifted his arms… and promptly realized he couldn't do anything else. It felt like the entire world were sitting on his chest. Also, everything hurt. Seeming almost amused, Alex rolled her eyes at him as she got up, rounded the bed, came to his side, gave him a soft little 'told you so' smile. "Okay, up we go," she said, and hooked her arms under his and with used her body weight to drag him upwards along the bed, while lifting him toward her—he was surprised at her strength—grunting a little, she propped him there against the headboard—and there was a fraction of a second when she drew back but without completely retracting her arms from him, where they looked each other in the eye and inexplicably remained still. Her hazel eyes caught the lamp light in the room and appearing to be almost amber in color at that moment—he was fascinated, intrigued, and then she pulled away completely, uncomfortable, but trying to act as if she were at ease, trying to smile, looking more like she were grimacing. Cas realized that Sam made the same face sometimes. "There's no shame in, uh, asking for a little help now and then, Cas," she told him, attempting a light chuckle. He looked away. No shame? Then why did he feel nothing _but_?

He glanced at her sidelong. "You must be upset to be left behind."

She seemed surprised by his comment, thought about it for a beat then shrugged in good nature. "Nah, it's okay. I mean, hey. It was my turn to watch over you, right?" She smiled at him, but it was a hesitant, cautious smile. He understood that she was trying to be light and optimistic, but he was so wretched, unable to even sit up by himself—that her attempt only increased his misery. Alex seemed to react poorly to that, and sobered, looked away.

_"My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late!" _A young woman was lamenting on the television screen. Alex huffed and got up abruptly, switched off the TV set, then turned back around, folded her arms. Pensive, she cleared her throat, seemed to be unsettled. Finally, she looked at him. "Cas… did I do something _wrong_?"

Her suddenly emotional tone confused him. "What do you mean?" he asked.

There was a pause. She shifted where she stood, restless, her eyes dropped away from him. "I just—you've been acting kind of, I dunno, weird toward me since Carthage," she said. The blood in the veins of Castiel's vessel suddenly felt cold—did she somehow know what he had done? "And I just think," she continued, sounding lost, "did I do something to like upset you, or...?" she stopped there, looked at him fearfully, face and body tense, waiting for his reply.

Castiel just looked away, kept his voice and face neutral despite the internal racket of fear and guilt. "No, of course not." It wasn't a lie, but Castiel knew he was lying, still, by avoiding the truth. _"When humans want something really, really bad, we lie,"_ Dean had told Cas not long ago. Cas didn't even desire to lie or hide things, especially from her... but he had trapped himself here where it was the only option that remained. He couldn't tell her the reason why he'd been more distant and avoidant was because of what happened in the panic room. She couldn't know about his mistake, his momentary lapse in control. Especially _now_, considering what he had seen in the future. And yet he could see that it left her thinking she'd done something to push him away—Castiel marveled sorrowfully at the mess he had created. He didn't even know how to fix it, or if that were even possible. He watched her, feelings of misery and loathing pinging around inside of him.

Alex was chewing on the inside of her mouth—Castiel could tell from the way her cheek hollowed out on the side. "I was really drunk the night before Carthage, okay?" She said, and Cas was perplexed. That wasn't true—she hadn't been _drunk_, had she? Perhaps just slightly inebriated. "I, uh, don't really even remember most of what happened," she said, and Cas swallowed, felt his teeth grit together, felt his eyes drop down and away from her. "And whatever I might have _said_..." she continued awkwardly, looking at him as if waiting for him to understand. And suddenly he did. She thought when she had touched his hand… he closed his eyes briefly, and reopened them. "Whatever I might have, _done_," she continued, highly uncomfortable. He cut her off before she could continue, but he couldn't look at her. "There are no ill feelings, Alex. You did nothing wrong."

She looked at him. Did she believe him? Her face was scrunched oddly. "Are you sure?" she asked. "Because you just haven't been... _you_ the past few times I've seen you and I just thought—"

"Of course I'm sure," he snapped, hating being stuck, sitting on the bed, afraid of what she was asking, of what she might discover if she kept pressing him for answers, despising himself for what he had done and the wound he'd inflicted on her without even realizing. She was startled at his tone and sharp look. Cas was startled, too, and his eyes went down, his voice softened. He tried to find an excuse, another lie. Anything to sweep away the chance of her finding out what he had done, what he had hidden away. "It's… Lucifer… and also my search for God… I can't find answers on either anywhere, and—I'm highly vexed." It wasn't a complete lie, but it still felt like one. Alex seemed to be thinking his answer over, grew sympathetic, and Cas felt a wash of shamed, guilty relief.

"So, no luck with the whole God thing," she said, and came, sat at the foot of the bed, near his feet, her legs hanging over the side of the bed.

_The whole God thing._ Cas shook his head, pressed his lips together, avoided her eyes. "He's nowhere to be found."

"But you haven't given up." Neither a question nor a statement. She sounded intrigued.

"I _can't_ give up," he said. There was too much at stake, there was too much at risk. And besides that, there was nothing else left to believe in. Everything else had failed Castiel. Heaven, his brothers and sisters, his own decisions and choices. "He's out there somewhere. I don't know why he's… hiding." His word choice of 'hiding' made him quiet for a moment. Why would his father would hide when he was needed so desperately? It would make sense when he finally found God, he told himself. Perhaps it was a part of the design, a test of faith.

Alex looked down at the bedspread. "I don't know how you can have so much faith in someone who is refusing to be found."

"Didn't you believe in your father?" Cas questioned. "Even when he went missing?"

Alex looked at him with a caught off guard expression. "No." She glanced off to the side. "I thought he'd finally just _split_, honestly." Her chin moved forward a little in an odd expression like reluctance, then she glanced at him, unsure. She thought a minute longer, not looking at him when she spoke. "My dad and I… he failed me in so, _so_ many ways. It's hard not to be bitter, you know? How would I have _faith_ in him? When he treated us, _me_ so…" she stopped, swallowed, glanced his way. "I mean… you_ saw_ what he tried to do, right? Give me up?" Her words paused him completely.

He realized his mistake, realized that he had temporarily forgotten that pivotal moment that Gabriel had shown Alex: John Winchester talking to Bobby Singer about giving his daughter up into state care—_disowning_ her. He remembered seeing the memory from where he'd been fighting to reach Alex, and at first, not understanding what the two men were arguing about. And when he'd understood, he'd felt a strange hollow horror. A father should protect his child, this was his solemn duty. And Alex had been more vulnerable than most children. Therefore her father should have absolutely protected her, never even _considered _letting her leave his sight, not even for a moment—Castiel felt something inside him darken as he thought of John Winchester trying to abandon the one who had been entrusted to him.

He looked at Alex now, spoke slowly, frowning, his voice affected by everything he was thinking about. "He never should have even considered… 'giving you up.'"

She looked at him from the edge of her eyes. "Why _not_?"

Those two words shocked him: her implication was that she was worthless or invaluable. "How can you ask that?" he asked in wounded disbelief.

"Because I _get_ it," Alex said darkly. "I was just… a _problem _and in the way. He didn't want me." Her voice wavered almost imperceptibly, leaving Cas feeling helpless, wondering why should would assume that or believe that. "I don't understand," Cas said, looking at her intently—he could feel how wrinkled his forehead was.

Alex looked at him fleetingly, and her jaw worked back and forth as she clenched it. She didn't say anything for a long moment. "He drank a lot. He _said _a lot. The kind of stuff you don't just _forget_." Her hand gripped bedspread tightly beside her leg, and he thought perhaps she didn't even know she was doing that. "That stuff you saw that Gabriel put me through?" she asked softly. "That wasn't half of it. Not even close."

Her voice steadied and she raised her chin, drew a deep breath. "So no. I didn't believe in him when he disappeared… even though we'd kind of been getting closer at the time… I just thought he finally got tired of it all. Of Dean and I and our shit." She looked very small and sad sitting there at the end of the bed. Her shoulders sloped forward a little as she looked at her feet. "I lived my whole life never knowing when he'd be back. _If_ he'd be back."

Guilt and pain flashed across her features, and Cas didn't understand why. Alex shook her head, distressed, absently rubbing the side of her forehead with her fingertips. "He was a good man. I _know_ he was." There was a lot of deeply conflicted emotion in those words. "But I don't think I believed in him. Ever." She paused. "He never believed in _me_."

Cas was quiet, thinking, regretting what he'd asked her—it had clearly caused her emotional pain. He reflected morosely that he was her guardian, was supposed to keep her safe from harm. But no matter the path he took, it seemed he was cursed, only able to cause her torment and pain. And in the end, in the future… death? For a moment, he couldn't look at her. When he did, she was now peering at him in intent curiosity. "Have you ever even _met_ God, Cas? Dean told me one time that Anna said only a couple angels have ever met him."

"That's true," Cas admitted, understanding the unspoken question, looking down at his hand to the right, waiting for her judgement. "I'm not one of them."

She looked at him in vague surprise. There was a short silence. "No offense but… how can you believe in a guy you've never even met?"

He glanced up at her from the corners of his eyes, reluctant. Her heartfelt question seemed far worse than a flippant insult—which was what he had expected. He let the silence hang for a moment. "It's getting more and more difficult," he admitted grudgingly.

She turned a little, shifting and facing him more now, a hand on her knee, all traces of her former distress replaced by inquisitive curiosity. "So, if you find God, do you think he would actually be up for stopping the whole Michael Lucifer slapping contest? I mean, isn't them facing off part of his grand plan?"

She phrased things strangely, he thought. Similarly to Dean. He felt himself frown as he thought over the question. He then answered truthfully. "I'm not sure. What I believe about that anymore."

He watched her reaction to his words—she blinked a couple times, looked down, eyes went back and forth slowly. She was thinking, deeply. And so was he, now. Trying to quiet the creeping doubt within that God would never be found. He'd searched the world for months now. He was running out of places to look. But God had to be there somewhere, he _had to be_. He watched Alex now, and her eyes snapped back to his—they were an impossible color; every shade of a forest filtered by late afternoon sunlight. As always, they drew him in. "Cas, I need to ask you something and I need you to be honest with me," she said, and her concerned expression alerted him to the fact that what she was asking worried her. "Does Anna have a point?"

He took a moment to understand what she was referring to. "About killing Sam?" Cas paused heavily. "Perhaps."

She frowned, looking at him intently. "That's not what you said back in two-thousand ten when Sam asked you that."

"I didn't want to acknowledge it as an option," Cas said, avoiding her questioning gaze. It was an uncomfortable subject. "I still don't."

She sat back a little, looked at him, her face softening. "When I first met you—you would have killed him without hesitation if you thought it would stop Lucifer."

He glanced at her, thought about how much had changed since then. "That's true," he acknowledged, not sure why it left him conflicted. Commands and orders had been his entire existence, he hadn't questioned the will of Heaven. And now, he did nothing _but_ question it. He let out a long breath through his nose. He felt troubled down to the deepest part of his being. But when he looked up at her again, he forgot the pain for a moment.

A soft smile pulled at Alex's lips, and the action softened her entire face. She looked at him in a way he didn't know how to describe and he noticed that the air in the room had grown still, that he could hear his vessel's heart beating in his ears. Cas wanted to know what she was thinking, what made her look at him like that. He didn't have to wonder long, because she spoke as she lowered her chin a little, her eyes falteringly staying on him. "You've just—you've changed so much," she said, and unlike the way Anna had said it to him earlier—as an insult—Castiel recognized it as a deeply pleased admission, and somehow it caused him to feel pleased, too. Alex was still looking at him with those soft, open eyes, the look on her face giving him the impression that she had something important to say. When she spoke, she said something no one had ever said to him before. "You know what? I'm_ proud _of you, Cas."

He felt a rush of something in his vessel, a visceral spike of instant and pleasant surprise—she was _proud_ of him? He felt lighter somehow, but it quickly faded into confusion, because he was unsure of how she could feel that for him. "Why?"

"Because you've decided to be your own person, make your own choices," she said, and she sounded so proud, so approving. Which only made him feel rotten inside, vile. If she only knew what choices he'd made—the things exercising free will had caused—she would more than likely not be speaking to him. She would be regarding him with a disdain he fully deserved. Distracted by thoughts of the panic room, her begging him not to take her memory, he grew sullen and dark. "It was simpler just obeying orders," he said.

She seemed to empathize with him, unaware of his inner struggle. "It always _is _easier to just do what you're told—but it's not always better."

Castiel looked at her long and hard, wondering about the future Anna had shown him. Wondering if Alex would say this at all if she knew what he had done to her already. Or what the future could lead them to if he didn't stop it now. "How do you know?" he asked slowly. "If you're making the right choices?"

She shrugged. "A lot of times you don't," she said, then reconsidered. "_Most _times you don't." She looked at him intensely now. "But this one? Trying to save Sam… find another way to shut down Lucifer… it's the right choice."

"But how do you _know_ it's the right choice?" he asked, thinking of Lucifer alive and well in 2014, of Alex dying in his arms, of Dean unrecognizable and merciless. His eyes flicked onto hers, and he was desperate to know how he could learn whether he were on the right path or not.

"I just _do_," she said, and the way she said it… he believed that she was certain. And it assured him in a very, very small way, but he was still left hollow and unsure how _he _could know for himself when a choice was right or not. He felt foolish, a thousands of years old angel of the Lord seeking advice from a twenty-six year old human being. Perhaps she thought him foolish, too, for not knowing how to do things like know right from wrong without someone telling him. But she didn't look like she thought that. Unlike her brother Dean, she never looked at him with deep-seated annoyance or displeasure—not anymore. She used to. He felt a ripple of fear inside as his stomach clenched. Perhaps a future where they were close and intimate wasn't as far off or as impossible as he had assumed. After all, it wasn't long ago at all that she had told him she hated him. But clearly, that had changed.

Disturbed, he stared at his right knee. "How can I know about other choices I have to make? How do I know if they're right?" He looked at her once more, plaintively.

She let out a heavy breath, thinking, maybe trying to find a way to explain. Or maybe she didn't know the answer to his question at all. She then spoke, carefully. "You take the days as they come. Do your best to do the right thing," she paused. "And learn to be okay with not always knowing." She had grown introspective, and was looking at a vague place in front of herself. "Because trust me." Her eyes flicked back to his. "A lot of times... you won't know."

_A lot of times, you won't know. _How true that was. "It sounds simple when you say it like that," he said, downcast.

"That's the funny thing about life though," she said, but she didn't sound amused or like she found it humorous. "Nothing's ever as simple as it sounds."

Cas attempted to shift himself, and grimaced. Concerned, Alex watched him. "Are you in pain?"

"It's tolerable," he said. "If I don't move."

"I'm sorry. If I had known you'd be messed up this bad…" Alex trailed off, paused. "I would have insisted you guys leave me behind."

"I wouldn't have let you stay," Cas said, to which she looked at him appraisingly, challengingly. But she said nothing, glanced at her watch. She looked anxious.

Cas looked at his feet sprawled in front of him unmoving on the bed. He was still unable to move, and his vessel was exhausted of energy. He should have come alone, taken on Anna himself, not have listened to Dean about bringing them. Another bad choice, he realized unhappily. He refocused on Alex, who had stood up, was over at the window, peering out. She seemed restless and concerned. "You're worried," Cas said.

"Yeah, but it's nothing new," she said, made a face, shrugged. Her arms were crossed now and she sighed, sounding resigned. "I've spent my whole life worrying about those two stupid _jerks_." She said 'stupid jerks' with an odd amount of affection and a sad little smile. Cas frowned, watching her with a confused expression.

"I... don't understand. You used an insulting term—but with a tone that indicates fondness."

Her crooked little smile got a little bigger as she looked at him from the corner of her eye. "Family, friends… they get to do that." She paused, then unexpectedly added, "you _ass_."

Castiel opened his mouth to ask why she had referred to him as a posterior, then stopped. She was looking at him with a playful expression, trying to press her lips into a straight line, but her smile was evident. Cas felt himself smiling a little, too._ Family, friends got to do that._ He was smiling more now, and she chuckled, eyes crinkled. He understood. She was implying he was her friend, or perhaps even family, that he was among a special group of people to her. And then, the thought of her dead body in his arms four years into the future flashed in front of his mind's eye, and his smile faltered completely.

There was a sudden knock on the door, and they both looked in unison as a voice called "Housekeeping!" and the door swung open. Panicking at the unexpected intrusion and unable to move, Cas watched helpless as Alex, already half way to the door, was drawing her knife behind her back, hiding it there, ready to attack—the knife still had her blood on it.

"Room's not empty," Alex said, stopping the door halfway with her foot, mostly blocking the newcomer's view into the room. "Oh, sorry honey!" said the woman. Cas could just see the top of her head and part of her face from in the gap between the door and Alex's arm. "I thought this room was empty," the woman explained, and craning her neck, eyed Cas curiously, then grinned widely, looked at Alex and winked. "Damn, looks like you wore him out good!"

"Uh—yeah, thanks," Alex said, and turned, shut the door in the woman's face and locked it, then re-sheathed the knife, looking a lot less amused than she had a minute ago. Cas tried to decipher the woman's meaning, looked at Alex intently. "That woman. What did she mean you… 'wore me out good'?"

Alex looked at him and from her expression, he was surprised she didn't ask 'are you serious?' Instead, she pursed her lips and looked to her left. "Umm, well, this is the honeymoon suite," she said, eyes darting around, expression strange. Cas's frown deepened. He didn't understand what that meant, and Alex gave him a clearly chagrined look, expelled a huff, tried to explain again. "She, uh, thought we were… that we had… I guess, _you know_." Cas waited. No—he didn't know. "Had _sex_, Cas," Alex said, exasperated, her ears and cheeks a little redder than they had been a moment before. He was silent and she folded her arms again, became sarcastic as her cheeks grew even redder. "You know what sex is, _right_?"

Cas gave her a hooded glance. He had existed for thousands and thousands of years—of course he knew what it was. And immediately after thinking that, he remembered the image he'd seen of Alex and himself in the future, her on his lap, her legs on either side of his legs, their arms wrapped around each other, hands on each other, no space between their bodies… it struck him as being intensely sexual, and gazing at her now, he felt a strange sense of embarrassment; his skin began to feel hot all over. Unintentionally, he wondered what might have happened next in that cut-short moment Anna had shown him… would they have kissed more and then… would they have...? He swallowed, intensely uncomfortable without any warning, and unable to look even in Alex's direction. He tried not to think of it, not to imagine it.

Sex was an activity which most human beings participated in—it was a means of reproduction and a source of physical pleasure, or so he'd gathered—but more than that he understood it to be an expression of emotional and physical love. He hadn't thought about it much before; he had never quite understood the more intimate details of the act, nor had he cared to. Not before. Now, he felt a growing curiosity about it, and discomfort at the realization that he felt that way.

In heaven it was said that sex was something God had created for humans to express love, but Castiel had observed that idea wasn't always true. Many humans had sex with complete strangers—_he_ almost had, thanks to Dean's insistence. Cas remembered that woman—Charity? That prostitute woman at the strip club. He had watched this loose woman, completely detached, as she had said strange things to him about what she planned to do to his body. She had pushed his coat off his shoulder, licked him on his neck. He remembered frowning, wondering why she was tasting him and if the act was supposed to be pleasurable or evocative. His vessel hadn't reacted at all to her, not positively. Not how it reacted to the woman standing across him in this room right now, he realized, and finally looked at Alex again, hoping she would never know the extent of his sinful thoughts. She seemed to feel his eyes and met his gaze guardedly. Just her eyes meeting his made his vessel react. He wanted so much to not be affected this way, to be so under the influence of her presence.

"Yeah, uh, awkward, right?" she commented dryly on his continued silence, then rubbed the back of her neck self-consciously, trying to smile but grimacing instead. "Hey, so, let's not mention that to Dean. Ever."

He heard her, but he was distracted by thoughts of the future, fears of what it would bring. Did he possess the ability to change it? He felt able to when he was away from her, but in moments like this where she was close and in his atmosphere, he wasn't so sure he could resist forever. He'd already proved to himself that he was weak enough to stumble—the panic room. And he'd seen a future where he'd obviously given in and paid the ultimate price. The loss of Alex, the girl he was sworn to protect. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, seeking an answer he wasn't sure she could give him. "If you knew the future were certain... unchangeable... would you still try to stop it?" he asked. Her immediate response was to make an almost cynically amused face.

She walked over slowly, arms still folded, almost swaggering like Dean did sometimes. "Uh, _yeah_. I mean, look at my friggin' life right now. Lucifer, Michael…? Everyone says it's gonna happen, that it's _fate,_ that it's already a done deal." She stopped, stared at the wall in front of her blankly. "Everyone except Dean and Sam."

Cas frowned. She'd neglected to mention herself. "What about you?" he asked.

She glanced at him again, grim. "I'll do whatever it takes to keep it from happening. You know that." Her jaw was tight, her voice was hollow. "I can't lose them." She looked afraid. He could see it in her tense shoulders, the rigid lines between where her eyebrows pushed together, her fingers nervously pressed flat against her legs as she stood still. He remembered seeing this same fear in her as long as he could remember. The fear that she would lose her brothers and have nothing. He considered telling her that even if they left, he would remain. But he felt it was a reassurance he couldn't offer her. There was a long silence, and Alex sank to the bed again as she breathed out heavily. She sat rigidly near his feet and staring into middle distance.

Cas watched her unchanging profile. He was helpless and weak and realizing that_ this _was the reason he refused to give Sam over to Lucifer. Because it would offset a chain of events that would realize Alex's worst fears. And also, Sam was his friend—Dean was his friend. The three Winchesters were the first and only friends he'd had. He didn't want to see them used or manipulated. He didn't want to see his brothers Michael and Lucifer destroy each other and the world along with it. It gave him enough sorrow that his brothers were being made to kill each other, but the fact that it had to be _her_ brothers in the balance… made it even worse for Cas.

He looked around the room now, frustrated, searching for an answer. All he saw were hearts and roses all over everything in the room. The sight of them irked him greatly and he felt a scowl on his face. "These heart shapes are inaccurate," he muttered, and surprisingly, Alex looked at him, a strangely amused expression on her face, the pensive look fading away. She seemed to think of something, stuck her pointer finger up then swung it down. "That reminds me." She stood up, went to the dresser, grabbed a small square thing off of it, pulled little cards out of it and sat down, this time not on the edge of the bed, but in the middle of it, only arm's length away from him. She sat cross-legged and she shuffled the cards expertly as he watched. "The greatest pastime ever invented: a deck of playing cards," she said, shuffling the cards expertly. They made pleasing little papery sounds. She glanced at him doubtfully. "Do you know how to play poker?"

Cas looked from the cards to her in all seriousness. "Gambling is sinful."

She stopped completely, looked at him oddly. "Well, so is murder and we do that all the time." He looked at her blankly. She hid a smile as she looked down at the cards. "And I've seen you get smitey a time or two." She glanced back at him from underneath her eyelashes. "So cards can't be _that _bad, right?"

Cas was silent, unsure. Alex began dealing cards, gave him a little smile, and his unease faded. "We'll play Go Fish instead," she told him.

* * *

"So weird how this was in the _honeymoon suite_ though," Alex said, and moved her game piece to a purple square, then cringed. "Stuck in the molasses swamp, as usual," she muttered, and sighed. Cas drew another card from the deck, looked to see what color he got. He looked so at ease and unlike the Cas she was used to—he was relaxed, eyes not squinted up, eyebrows not furrowed. He really seemed to be into the board game. They'd played Go Fish for a few rounds and Cas had complained (well, _stated_, but she called it complaining) about the lack of fish imagery in the game, said it with such serious concern. She'd laughed at the comment, then poked around the room and found, of all things, _Candy Land _in one of the drawers of the dresser—and the remains of some weed, too. _Welcome to the 70s,_ she'd thought to herself.

Cas was now propped onto his side, his head resting in the palm of his hand—he seemed a little stronger than before, but not much—moved his piece to a red square, just a few squares away from the 'home sweet home' square. "I'm winning," he said, and looked at her with an almost sly smile on his face.

Alex gave him an overly-dramatic challenging look from where she sat across from him. "Don't be too confident, _buddy_." She turned over her newest card and then smirked. It was a blue card, freeing her from the swamp and taking her forward, one square ahead of his. She smirked triumphantly at him and he drew another card, then looked at her, raised his eyebrows… and showed her the yellow card, moved his piece to the 'home sweet home' square.

And then he surprised her completely by making a face like she had a minute ago. "You shouldn't be so confident… buddy," he parroted her, and it sounded hilarious and kinda stilted coming out of his mouth. Alex dissolved into giggles (which didn't happen—ever). She could barely see because her eyes squinted up so much as the giggles turned to full on laughter—he looked so funny—propped there like that, his face in his hand like a little damn kid, looking so pleased that he'd won the dumb game. Her guardian angel, the _Candy Land_ champ. It was in, one word: cute. She shook her head, still laughing.

She wiggled her eyebrows at him. "Care to go double or nothing?" she asked, then he looked slightly confused and she laughed again. "I mean, want to play again?"

Understanding flashed across his features, then _enthusiasm_. "Yes, again," he said, and moved their pieces back to the beginning as Alex grabbed up the color cards and shuffled them quickly. This was bizarre, to say the least—playing a kid's board game with her wounded angel, but it also felt so good because he wasn't holding her at arm's length, looking at her like the spawn of Satan. Maybe it was just for today or now, but they were _okay_ again, and it made her feel good, safe, better about everything. Encouraged that they could be friends again.

Alex finished shuffling the cards and noticed that Cas was staring at her arm—at the cut on her arm where the blood was congealed. It wasn't super visible, just the end of it from beneath where her shirt sleeve was rolled up, but his smile had faded, and his eyes flicked up to hers. "You shouldn't have used your blood for the sigil," he said, suddenly perturbed. Alex wasn't sure what he was getting at. "Why not?"

"You could have used mine," he said, and Alex made a face like she didn't understand how he could suggest that. Did he forget he had been bleeding and unconscious and had frightened the living daylights out of her _because _he'd been bleeding? And he thought she'd just merrily slice into him for some more blood? It was almost funny, except not really. "Uh, Cas, I wasn't gonna cut you open—no way."

He looked unruffled, in fact, a little pissed. "So you cut yourself instead."

Alex frowned, then got a little defensive. "I mean I'm fine, it's just a little cut, Cas." It hurt like a bitch but she wasn't going to admit that. Instead she just raised her eyebrows, trying to sound confident and like she didn't really care. "Do you _know_ how many times I've had to bleed doing what I do?"

His eyes met hers. "Too many." And her air of confidence faded just like that. Cas's protectiveness of her had sometimes made her feel angry, like he thought she was weak or stupid, but those two words carried so much empathy and sadness. Like he _hated the fact that she hurt_, not that he thought she were a delicate, wilted flower. She looked away. When he said things like this to her… she couldn't help the way she felt. "Well, I did it to protect us," she said sullenly, and his somewhat stern expression faded.

Alex put the _Candy Land_ cards down, staring at nothing blankly. "I think Lucifer is inside my head," she blurted suddenly. Castiel's expression went cold and Alex fumbled verbally. "Or, or _something_."

"What do you mean?" he asked intently, and he suddenly looked every bit the Cas that had stood at the edge of a circle of holy fire and stared the devil down.

Alex wasn't sure why she'd just blurted that out—she hadn't told anyone about it, had been too freaked out about it, hoped it would stop or go away… she folded up _Candy Land_, moved it and the cards to the side, anything to avoid looking at him—

"_Tell me_, Alex," he insisted, voice deeper than she remembered. Alex finally looked at him. If she were going to tell anyone, it should be him. "I've been having this recurring dream," she said waveringly, trying not to sound as freaked out as it made her feel. "Since the night before we tried to kill him."

"What is the dream?" he asked, dangerous, intense, needing to know.

Alex wet her lips with her tongue, trying to figure out how to word it, because it was mostly feelings more than images. There really _were _no images actually, just the vague shadowy interior of the panic room. She frowned deeply. "It's… so strange. I'm in the panic room every time. At first I feel… weird. Like, out in the open? Like I've let a secret out or said something I wasn't supposed to. But then I feel good. Safe… really, _really_ happy. But then it cuts short and there's this horrible fear and I want to run away, but something is like… pinning me down? That's the worst part. The feeling of being trapped." She stopped a minute, thinking about how awful the feeling was. "And then I wake up."

She looked at Cas, whose expression seemed even colder, more fearful than before—like he feared the worst, and Alex's stomach turned in fear—if it scared him, how bad was it? But he said nothing. Alex waited, but he said nothing. "That weird dream, plus the way he just, called me to him—could he be inside my mind?" No reply. "I mean, how could he be, right? But—maybe? Did he leave a mark, or…?"

Cas was shaking his head, his expression stony. "No, I don't—I don't think it's possible."

"But what if it is?" she asked, starting to sound as desperate and afraid as she felt. "I mean would you even _know_?"

He avoided looking at her, seemed to be thinking hard. His jaw was tense. "I'll find out. How Lucifer did what he did," he sounded grave and distracted. "But... I don't think that's him inside your mind."

"Well what else _could it be_?" Alex demanded, starting to fear the worst the more she talked about it out loud. "It started the night of Carthage," she reminded him. That, to her, was the biggest indicator. She looked at him: he was her last resort, her only way of really knowing. "Just, test me or something. For a mark or a devil tracking device, I don't know. Please Cas."

He seemed reluctant, but then after a couple seconds, raised his hand, placed it on her shoulder, closed his eyes and his face twisted in deep concentration like thought, he remained like that for about ten seconds. Ten seconds in which Alex just stared at the knot of his tie, trying to regulate her breathing. Just stuck feeling his hand on her shoulder—large, warm, heavy. She had forgotten how his very touch was enough to undermine her. He finally opened his eyes, frowning, looked at her. "Nothing," he said. His hand moved just slightly down, to the curve of her shoulder instead of the top even as the frown softened, his expression becoming unreadable and intense. His eyes were bluer than any sky she'd ever seen. And then he took his hand away, looked away, said nothing. He looked like something was hurting him, maybe physically, and Alex moved her head to try and see him better. "You okay?" she asked, looking at him closely. His eyes slid her direction, but remained downcast. "I'm fine," he replied wearily.

Alex, didn't think she believed him, but let it go, shook her head, at a loss, plagued by thoughts of Lucifer. If it wasn't some kind of mark inside, _how_? Any of it? "I just need to know why it's happening. If it means something," Alex said, plaintive. If Cas couldn't help her, could anyone? She waited a couple seconds, then quietly sighed, deeply distressed. "I haven't even told Sam or Dean about it." She wasn't sure why she'd said that out loud, but it got his attention. He once again met her gaze, deeply surprised. "Why not?"

Alex took a second, thinking about it, not totally sure. Then she shrugged shallowly. "They have enough problems of their own right now. If this _isn't_ something… I don't wanna worry them." There was a heavy pause. "But… if it is something…" she trailed off, not sure what she was going to say. She had propped an elbow on her knee and had her forehead in her hand now, tired. Drained.

Cas was pushing himself up a little into a sitting position, grimacing. He leaned against the headboard, arms at his sides, head turned to look at her. He looked serious. "I won't let Lucifer have you. Or Sam." He paused, looked down, suddenly disconcerted. "I suppose that's not very reassuring, looking at me right now."

Alex smiled to herself unexpectedly, despite her current emotional state. Cas was so very ashamed of his current condition, and it showed—and maybe she should have felt really bad for him, but seeing him vulnerable and uncertain just drew her to him more. She almost felt protective of him in that moment. "No. It's… I believe you, Cas." She paused, looking at him through veiled eyes, realizing how much she owed him as she thought about everything. Not just Dean's life, but Sam's too. She felt a surge of realization that this angel in front of her—all he did was give to her and her family. How could they ever repay him, even a little? Maybe with a thank you. So, she did her best, even though she felt a little awkward verbalizing it.

"Hey, so, it meant a lot that you weren't willing to help Lucifer find Sam that night, you know. I—I didn't think you would continue to say no like you did." She hadn't. And when he had, with her life on the line… she'd been so proud of him. Scared shitless too, but proud.

In response to her praise, he seemed to grow even more despondent, and maybe a little angry, too. "It was an impossible situation to be put into," he said starkly. "I only got you out of Carthage with fifty-six seconds to spare."

Alex felt her eyebrows raise up a little. Had it really been that close to midnight, to when Lucifer said she'd drop dead if she wasn't out of town? She hadn't realized. That _was_ a close call. "Well, we got out though, right?" she asked, attempting to be optimistic.

Cas didn't look at her. "Barely." He looked guilty and conflicted and Alex suddenly realized something, tilted her head to the side. This was the _exact same _kind of crap Dean put himself through constantly. She felt sad to see Cas doing the exact same thing. "Don't blame yourself for things that didn't even happen," she told him gently.

His eyes snapped to hers. "Lucifer _had_ you there." He looked almost angry again. "That _happened_." He _was_ angry now. "He could have _killed_ you, Alex, and I wouldn't have been able to do anything. I barely saved your life as it was." His jaw clenched, he looked away, his expression foul. "And look at me now. Helpless again."

Alex stared at him speechlessly as he got quiet stared off at the floor unseeingly. He looked so frustrated, and she knew the feeling, but still. Whenever he got angry like that, his eyes blazing with a quiet fire that promised retribution, she always mentally took a step back, remembered how powerful he was, how he could devastate his enemies with just a touch... all while he walked the earth in the body of a man. She was pretty sure Sam and Dean didn't quite see him as she did, they seemed to underestimate him or maybe they were just too distracted with the craziness of reality to think much about it. Alex paused. _Sam and Dean._

She checked her watch and her stomach clenched. It was almost eleven at night. _Crap. _This was not good. Dean said he'd call by ten. She glanced at the phone beside the bed, her instincts buzzing with foreboding. "Something's wrong," she muttered, and turned, got up, suddenly incredibly antsy. _If I don't call you by ten, if we don't come back, come looking._ Dean's words to her earlier that day.

She turned to Cas, who had started frowning at her the second she'd said that something was wrong. She looked at him apprehensively, knowing what she had to do. He wasn't going to like it, and she was pretty sure he would have to stay put, which he'd like even less. He was sprawled there on the heart-covered comforter like a sad rag doll. "Cas—I've gotta go find them. They've been gone too long—are you able to move?"

He looked at her, shocked, then frowning even deeper than before. "You can't go alone."

She was already snatching her jacket up off the floor where it had fallen earlier, shrugging it on, giving him a 'no, duh' look. "That's why I asked if you could move," she said. "Can you?"

He struggled a minute, pushing himself up further into a sitting position—then collapsing back against the headboard weakly. The worst part was the little weak groan he let out.

"So, no," Alex said, grim, glancing around the room. She didn't want to leave him just sitting there, unable to move or defend himself—but she literally _had _to go find Sam and Dean. Cas watched her finish adjusting her jacket. He looked incredibly unhappy. She'd feel the same if she couldn't move or walk or do anything. Hell, she'd been there a few times actually, stuck and wounded and left behind.

"I won't be long," she told him. "I'll be back as _soon _as I find them." She turned to leave, but the sound of his voice stopped her in her tracks.

"Wait."

She turned around. He looked at her pensively. She walked over to him, watching as he reached inside of his trench coat, wincing, and withdrew something—a gleaming silver angel blade. "Take this," he said, and held it out to her. She stared in shock, then shook her head. "I—I can't leave you without your weapon—" she protested, but Cas held it out further. "Take it."

"Wait—I thought you gave Sam your blade," she said. He shook his head slightly. "I gave Sam Uriel's blade. This one... is mine." He held it out even further to her, handle first, the sharp end pointed at himself. And Alex was struck by how important this moment must be. He was letting her have the only thing that could kill him, the only thing that could defend him against other angels. She looked from him to the blade. "Are you sure?" she asked. It felt like too much to accept.

"Take it," he repeated, holding her gaze. Alex looked from his eyes to the handle of the blade in his hand. She gave in, reached out, her hand closing over the handle, fingers brushing against the ends of his as she took it. The blade was surprisingly light and cool to the touch, almost seemed to hum with an energy against her skin. Just holding it was incredibly intimidating. Her eyes flickered to his, doubtful. "Okay, but, are you _really_ sure?"

He just looked at her. She could tell how entirely unhappy he was that she was leaving, and alone. "Anna is very fast," he answered gravely. "Alex, be careful."

At that remark, she couldn't help but smirk a little as she slipped the blade into the inside pocket of her jacket. "Always am."

"No," he said grumpily, "you're not."

Maybe that shouldn't have made her smile, but it did a little. The smile faded fast though, when she took in his clear dismay and fear. She felt her stomach clench a little bit as she thought about the danger and uncertainty of their situation. It was dizzying and overwhelming, really: Dean and Sam, missing, Cas down for the count, a powerful angel named Anna somewhere out there, bent on killing her parents and/or Sam. In all the time that had passed already, she thought of how much could have already happened, terrible possibilities and scenarios played out in her mind's eye. She made herself stop, because if she let her mind go there, she'd panic. Days like this she had to think how impressive it was that she wasn't in a crazy house somewhere. Alex zipped her jacket and pulled her hair out of the collar, to the side, realizing she couldn't waste any more time. So she put on a brave, confident face, nodded once at Cas. "I'll be back," she said, and turned, went to the door.

She paused there, looked back as her hand came to rest on the doorknob. Cas was looking at her in intense discomfort. He didn't want her to go. It was written all over his face. And she realized that she really, really wished she didn't have to leave him there all alone, but what choice did she have? Sam and Dean might need help, might be dead for all she knew. Or, Dean might just not have been able to find a phone. Leaving Cas defenseless seemed risky, but not going and finding her brothers was risky too. For a second, Alex wondered if this were the right thing to do. Cas had asked her earlier about how to know when you were making the right choices. And this was one of those times when you just didn't know. Conflicted, Alex took in a deep breath, turned. And walked out the door.

* * *

_Author's Notes: hello how r u this chapter srsly u guise, this CHAPTER has melted my brian. Er, my brain. The crazy thing is... episode 5x13 (Song Remains the Same) was, in my mind, ONE CHAPTER. And it turned into last chapter, this chapter, and will be concluded in the NEXT chapter. Just, so much unexpected Calex moments and important thoughts/feelings to be explored... and many more to come too as the episode is concluded next chapter. UGH OKAY ANYWAY I cannot stand these two and their perfection. How can they be so cute and tragic at the same time? I don't know. Sigh. But, I love them so much. HEY BTW I need to say a huge huge huge thank you to my lovely Jess who betas and proofs for me and lets me email her all day long about this story. Jess, you are my favorite ever._

_Oh yeah... I listened to Last Hope by Paramore a thousand times while writing this chapter, so. There's that. Anyway, dear readers, please leave a review and let me know your favorite part, and maybe take a guess at what will happen next?! :) love, your slightly crazed and sleep-deprived author. _


	25. Meet The Parents

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 25 / Meet the Parents

"_Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."  
_- Leo Tolstoy

* * *

The instant the door closed behind Alex, Cas had suddenly had a rush of fear and resistance, and had struggled again to sit up further, needing to be able to function and _now_. He foolishly hoped he would suddenly, miraculously be able to move and subsequently be able to go with her to make sure she was safe. But it was the same as before—the vessel pinged in pain all over, refused to move. He was drained, literally, of ability, and he let out the softest sound of frustration, barely able to contain the defeat he was feeling. He was miserable and pathetic, completely inept, and Alex was out there, alone. Completely alone.

In all his centuries he had never experienced such a sensation of utter failure. Nothing was working as it was supposed to, and it wasn't just limited to his vessel. He couldn't hear the celestial whispers that Dean referred to as 'angel radio.' Castiel now regretted listening to Dean and bringing the Winchesters back with him. He might have stood a chance at taking Anna on, by himself. But he had foolishly listened to Dean and given in to his demands, thus endangering them all. There was a dark thought lurking at the edge of his mind, that Anna might have already killed Sam and Dean both, and Cas had just let Alex go after them, perhaps to walk straight into a trap. The thought alone made him stop, horrified at himself. He had placed them _all _in mortal jeopardy with his choice to listen to Dean's wishes. What had he done? He cursed himself.

Cas had _wanted_ to command Alex not to go after them, not yet, not _alone_—the danger was too great. He might have done so in the past; insisted she go nowhere. But now he knew Alex well enough to recognize when she had made up her mind. And with her brothers missing, he'd known her mind was more than made up. Her love for them, her dependence on them was second to nothing else in her life. Cas had known this and been filled with dread, because he had literally had no way of stopping her from walking out of the door. He was too weak to even stand. Knowing she would leave to find them no matter the risks, no matter any argument or concern for her safety he could express—he'd done the only thing left to do. Sent with her a small part of himself, his blade. It was only a small hope of defending herself against Anna, but it was better than nothing.

Castiel thought again of her face as she took his blade with so much hesitation, then almost reverence, like she'd almost understood in a small way the significance of the gesture. Alex didn't know this—how could she, humans knew nothing of the sacred nature of the angel blade—but angels didn't give away their blades. Ever. They didn't loan them out. Each angel received only one, and only forfeited it upon death. Each blade was connected to its angel, and the angel to the blade. To give a blade away was considered an abomination. Castiel was sure that if his brothers and sisters in Heaven could see him now, they would be shocked about how many rules he had broken in favor of helping the Winchesters. In favor of protecting Alex.

At the thought of her, Cas struggled again, painstakingly pulling his legs over the edge of the bed. He felt such an acute sense of urgency. He had changed his mind. He didn't want her to go. Not at all. The reality of the risk to her life was pressing on him greater than before, and he needed Alex back, _now_, safe at his side where he could see her and know she wasn't in immediate danger. Refusing to accept it his weakened state, he groaned in pain, pushed himself up with all of his strength, attempting to stand. He fell forward onto all fours, shaking from exertion.

* * *

**2010**

Dean stumbled, almost falling sideways—jolted by suddenly being sent forward in time, back to the future. He saw that he was back in the motel room they'd been in before, when they'd left for 1978… his mind was reeling from what had just happened, but mostly, he had to know Sam was okay—because a minute ago he'd been dead, Anna had killed him and—

"Dean," came a voice, and there was a big hand on his shoulder, and Dean turned in dumbfounded shock to see Sam there, looking about as confused as Dean was. Overwhelmed with relief, Dean grabbed his brother, hugged him tight. Sam didn't really hug back, he seemed disoriented, and when Dean let go, Sam was looking around the motel room, confused. "What happened?" Sam asked. "I was—we were in 1978 and—Anna—she stabbed me and... I remember…" His look of confusion transformed into realization. "Did I _die_?"

Dean looked away, disturbed. "Yeah, you did. Anna killed you."

"_Explain_." Sam demanded intensely, almost threateningly.

Dean thought it over—it was a jumble in his mind, too—the entire thing—and it was pissing him off. "Okay, so Anna stabs you… you fall over dead in front of me… then Michael shows up, ganks Anna, makes Uriel go poof—"

Sam looked like he'd misheard. "_Michael_?"

Dean glanced at Sam broodingly. "He was using Dad as his meatsuit. Great, right?"

Sam's look of sheer disbelief and shock summed up Dean's feelings on the whole deal. Smirking humorlessly, Dean began to pace back and forth in front of his brother. "Yeah, I know. He said all this BS about the bloodline, how Dad was _a_ vessel and not _the _vessel, how free will is an illusion… I'm destined to say 'yes'... blah blah blah. Then he fixed you, sent us back." Dean paused, stopping mid-step, suddenly realizing something. His stomach dropped, his heart clenched. He suddenly couldn't breathe. "Shit. _Crap_!" He looked at Sam in horror, then around the empty motel room, whirling completely, frenzied in his search.

"What?" Sam asked.

Dean looked at his brother in breathless terror. "_Alex isn't here_, Sam! She's still in 1978! With Cas!"

Cold realization flashed across Sam's face, then anger. "_Dean_!" Sam exclaimed. "_How_?! Michael zapped you back too fast for you to tell him, _oh yeah_, my sister's here too, could you give her a ride back?!"

Hackles raising at Sam's blaming tone, Dean grew confrontational. "Michael was in my _head_ man, I blanked for a minute!"

"You mean you _forgot_ about her!" Sam corrected accusingly, shaking his head in abject horror.

At that comment, Dean went cold, feeling like he'd been caught. Instead of admitting that Sam was right, he considered punching Sam in the nose. "I told you we should've left Cas alone, taken Alex with us!" He raged, to which Sam held up two hands defensively, raised his eyebrows at Dean. "So now this is _my_ fault?"

Dean ignored his brother's question, turned around, trying to see straight. Had he made the biggest mistake of his life by leaving Alex with Cas? _How the actual hell was he supposed to get her back here_? She was thirty-two years into the past for God's sake! Behind him, Sam seemed to have calmed down a little bit. "Listen Dean," he reasoned tensely. "I'm sure when Cas wakes up, he'll bring her back."

Turning abruptly, hostile, Dean stared hard at his brother. "And what if he doesn't wake up, Sam, huh? What then?"

Sam said nothing, just looked down, clearly realizing Dean had a point.

"I _knew_ I shouldn't have let her out of my sight, dammit—" Dean knocked a lamp off the dresser beside him, repeating, louder, "_dammit_!" and trying to think, just _think_ what he could do now, if anything. He was literally at the end of his rope. In total desperation, not sure if it would go through or what, Dean stood there, glared at the ceiling. "Cas!" he shouted. "_Cas_! Can you hear me you bastard? You bring my sister back to me right now!" There was a long pause, and nothing happened. "Cas?" Dean repeated, but with less power, more fear. Nothing. Dean looked at Sam, who could barely meet his eyes. Quickly crumbling, fearing the worst, Dean sank to one of the beds, feeling like he might have a heart attack. "Jesus _Christ_, Sam. What the hell are we supposed to do?"

* * *

**1978**

Exhausted, Alex opened the motel room door and froze—Cas was standing (just barely) and gripping the dresser with both hands, looking like he was about to fall over. He looked up and saw her, his face washing over from pained exertion to relief. Alex was shutting the door behind her, already halfway over to him. "Cas! What are you doing?"

He wobbled a little, gripping the dresser tighter. "I was... preparing to come after you," he said, sounding disconcerted.

"On what _legs_?" Alex asked, dumbfounded—he looked like he was going to fall any second and her hands kind of hovered out in front of her near him, just waiting for him to topple over. In response to her question, he looked down, then back at her questioningly. "Uh… these legs."

Alex, drained both emotionally and physically, shook her head, grabbed his arm and pulled it over her shoulder. "Cas—come on. You need to sit back down—" she said. He seemed unable to control himself very well, leaning on her weightily, his feet shuffling oddly as she took her other arm and wrapped it securely around his back and waist, basically supporting him completely as she walked him over to the bed. She grunted a little from the effort—he was incredibly heavy. She left for _one hour _and he was trying to kill himself by trying to come after her... when he was clearly not even able to _stand_ unassisted! Unbelievable. She didn't need him risking his ass for hers like that and it pissed her off that he would try it, period.

Cas, a little dazed, was looking at her—she could tell because his voice was right in her ear. "You're much stronger than you look," he said, and sounded slightly surprised. She just looked at him sideways, tone bordering on annoyed. "That's what I've been trying to _tell_ you," she said as they reached the bed. She helped him sit as he'd been before, leaning against the headboard, upright. His legs were still off the edge of the bed, dangling limply, but Alex had gone kind of catatonic, staring at nothing in particular.

"What did you discover?" Cas asked, looking at her intently.

Alex looked at him again and her expression was foul. "A whole lot of nothing. The house was empty and dark, no one was there. They either went somewhere or…" she trailed off. Agitated and fearful, she yanked her jacket off, threw it toward a knob on the wall. It missed. She reacted by bowing her forehead into the palm of her right hand, shutting her eyes, heaving a frustrated, overwhelmed breath. Her eyes flew back open when she felt his hand close gently around her left wrist. Cas was looking up at her with an intense, questioning expression—concern. And the anger and helplessness faded a little, replaced by something else: stark fear.

Alex swallowed, feeling more vulnerable and afraid than she had in awhile. She looked at his hand there, closed around her small wrist. Then back into his eyes, despairing. "Where _are_ they Cas?" she asked, desperate for an answer. There was a long pause and she sounded scared and small to herself when she spoke again. "Was I too late? Are they…?" she couldn't verbalize her fear that they were dead. She just wanted so desperately for Cas to tell her no, it wasn't too late, they were alive, not to worry. But Cas's hand dropped away, his gaze went into the middle distance in front of him, his jaw flexed tensely. "I don't know."

His answer seemed to make her chest tighter than before, and she felt a surge of hopelessness overcome her. She stared down at his legs as they hung awkwardly over the side of the bed. Almost angrily she bent and grabbed them, half-pushed half-hauled them up until they were in front of him on the bed, then she wordlessly walked away from the bed a couple steps, agitated, caged, at the end of her rope. She needed _answers_, she needed to know what was going on, she needed her friggin' brothers to be okay, safe and sound—but she had jack squat to show for her search, no clue if they were alive or dead or what. She'd done it in record time too, Dean would have been proud of how fast she'd found John Winchester in the phone book, hot-wired a car, driven the fifteen minutes across town. She'd been ready for a fight, to face down an enemy... but had found nothing. And the whole time she'd been out there, she'd been worrying about what if she found Sam and Dean in dead piles on the ground—what if she got back to the motel and found that Anna had come and killed Cas, who had been left defenseless without his blade. _Crap, the blade. _She'd forgotten.

She turned back around. Cas was just watching her, and she could see that he was worried, and maybe a little affronted, too. She'd slung his legs down kind of aggressively without explanation, like she was mad at him. She wanted to explain to him—as usual—because that pleased little look he got when he understood was one of the best things she could think of—but she felt like if she opened her mouth, all the pent up emotions she was holding inside: fear, anger, self-doubt would spill out into the open. So, wordlessly, she went back to the bedside, took the angel blade from where she'd had it in a belt loop behind her. In her hand, the cool metal seemed to buzz with an incorporeal energy and strength. She held it out to him, thought about saying a thank you, but that didn't seem like enough. He took it silently, then he laid it beside him on the bed, didn't even look at it. She followed the blade with her eyes, perplexed, then looked at him.

"We'll find them," he said, and his words surprised her, caused her to go totally still. She looked at him, feeling bare under his gaze, wanting to believe him, but not sure if she could allow herself to. Guilt and regret washed over her. "I should have gone with them," she managed brokenly, so miserable and torn. Suddenly feeling like she just couldn't stand up anymore, she sank down, sitting on the edge of the bed, next to his waist, her feet remaining flat on the floor. She felt like she was going to suffocate or implode. "I'm so _tired_ of _feeling_ this way," she managed to say as she stared at her knees. "Like _any_ friggin' choice I make doesn't _matter _in the end." She tried to laugh at herself, but lacked the energy. She could only let out a weak breath of air. "I made this big speech to Dean and Sam after the whole Gabriel thing and... about how I wasn't going to be a bystander, but look. I am. I _always_ am." There was a heavy pause, where Alex had to fight away tears. "And they might be dead now. They might be dead."

"We'll find them, Alex." Cas repeated.

Alex looked at him almost challengingly. "_How_?"

His gaze faltered away. He thought hard, grim, and he seemed unsure at first. "In the morning. We'll go look together."

Alex resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "You can barely even sit up," she told him, a little harsher than she meant to. Hurt flashed across his eyes and Alex immediately regretted it. "I know," he replied, and again looked away, unhappy. "I'm sorry. I've failed you."

Alex felt a surge of indignant anger at his words. "You've failed me?" she repeated. How could he think that? After all the stuff he'd done for her family, all the sacrifices and hell even _dying for them_? She felt insulted somehow that he would say he was a failure, and her temper was short as it was. "You haven't _failed_ me, Cas," she told him angrily. "Everything you've done for me and my brothers is the opposite of that." It was all nice stuff to say, but she said it so aggressively, almost bitterly, that it lost any grateful tone it might have had. And before she could stop herself, she sealed the deal with one final bitchy, pissy comment. "You haven't failed me, so... just cram the pity party, okay?"

Cas looked at her with a strange, wounded expression, didn't say anything for a couple of long seconds. "You sound like Dean."

Those four words somehow seemed to jab her in the gut, brought on a guilt-trip. She sounded like Dean? Dean who talked down to Cas? Dean who rolled his eyes at Cas? Dean who didn't treat Cas with respect or trust... both of which he deserved? Alex was appalled at herself and suddenly grasping for a way to explain herself. "I didn't mean—" she shook her head, out of words. "I'm sorry… I just..." she just _what_? She couldn't find the words and looked down, remorseful.

"You're upset," he stated grimly, and she looked at him again, taken aback. He was looking at his feet. "I understand."

She realized in genuine surprise that he was right—and how mature, how intuitive that seemed of him—but he looked so miserable, so personally offended, that it momentarily made Alex want to jump off the planet. She was a _jerk_. She gritted her teeth together. This is why conversations were so hard and why sometimes she just wanted to give up on them completely—she got so caught up in her emotions sometimes that she didn't stop to think about what she was saying or what it would do to the involved party. She tried to think of a way to explain herself to him.

"Yeah, I'm upset… not upset _with _you though," Alex tried falteringly, wishing she could take back the thoughtless comments. She could almost see the wheels of his mind turning with self-loathing and she tried to catch his gaze. "How could I bet mad at you?" she asked. "I mean… after everything? And today you gave me your friggin' angel blade, Cas..." she didn't have to pretend—she literally was still floored by the gesture. More hesitant now, she looked away. "I kind of can't get over that."

"I couldn't go with you." He just clenched his jaw. "You needed it."

She studied him from the corner of her eye a minute longer. "It left you totally defenseless," she said, and he met her sidelong gaze with a hooded glance of his own. "That's true." His eyes flickered down, but then met hers again. "I wanted you to have it."

Her heart clenched with an unfamiliar warmth, as she felt like she heard all the things he _didn't _say just then. She had gotten the feeling that he valued her safety over his own in the past, but today, he'd proved that all over again. She felt largely undeserving and caught off guard, like, _how the hell did I end up with this guardian angel who would give his life for me_? It was a huge, frightening thought and it made her feel a thousand things all at once. But the biggest one was a growing sense of trust and… she could barely keep his gaze now… love. Her heart twisted up, her pulse hammered. Her entire body seemed to go on high alert as she realized how much she felt for him, and not just fleeting little confused feelings or shallow attraction. No—genuine, deep, unmovable things. That _word_ she'd thought just a minute ago. Her confusion levels skyrocketed. How long had she felt like this?

"What's wrong?" Castiel asked, frowning in unease, his head tilting to the side at her silence. She realized her face had frozen in an odd expression as she'd been lost in thought and covering, she quickly flashed a nervous grin. "I, uh… just… thinking how I have the best guardian angel ever," she told him sloppily—and it _was _a sentiment she _did _feel—but said in a light tone that didn't reveal exactly how deep that feeling went. His eyes slid to hers again, sullen. "You're attempting to compliment me," he stated. "But I don't deserve it."

Alex didn't understand, stopping and looking at him with perplexed concern. He heaved a heavy sigh, staring ahead of himself unseeingly, a deep frown etched across his handsome features. "I'm a poor example of an angel. Attempting to serve a God I can't find. Heaven has cast me down. I've made… bad choices. Bringing the three of you here being one of them." He still wouldn't look at her. "I'm not the best anything."

She didn't agree. Not at all. And without thinking she leaned forward, grabbed his forearm. His eyes snapped up to hers. "You're the best angel I've ever met," she insisted intensely, then lost a little bravado as his brilliant blue eyes bored into hers. She'd grabbed him without thinking—should she let go, if this was overstepping his boundaries? Would this upset him like when she'd touched his hand at Bobby's? He just looked at her silently, frowning vaguely. And she didn't move her hand. However, it was harder to breathe now. "I mean maybe I haven't met a lot of angels, but I mean… still." She paused, voice softening. "You're the best one." She looked at her hand on his arm. He was looking at her hand, too, and Alex realized how damn quiet the room was and how uncomfortable it had become. She stood up, became overly animated and a little showy, trying to make it casual again, trying to act like nothing had happened. "I mean, there was Anna, nice at first, turns out she's insane. And Uriel, _dick_. Zachariah—God, what a _douche_. Raphael, he sucked big time. Gabriel, hate that guy. Lucifer… don't even get me started on what an asshat _he_ is." She gave a short barking laugh, but it was forced.

Cas watched her silently, his normal confused-perplexed-squinty-eyed 'what are you talking about' face on. She smiled a little for real at that, shrugged her hands out in front of herself, the pressed her mouth into a shrug. "I'm just trying to say that you're doing something right, Cas, okay?" she asked, then held up a mock-threatening finger and told him: "now, get down on yourself one more time and I swear to your dad..."

He blinked a couple times, the slightest hint of a smile on his lips, but his eyebrows were still knit together. Like he understood that she was making a joke, but he didn't quite get it, but it still amused him. It was probably the cutest expression Alex had ever seen. Her affable smile couldn't hold up as she took in his appearance, his face, everything about him, the memory of kissing him—well not him, but the future version of him. She felt a pang of loss for something she'd never had, and unable to handle it, she turned away, went to the other end of the room.

_He's your guardian angel, your friend, and that's all._ She repeated this in her head several times as she stood in front of the silent television, trying to believe herself. "What... are you doing?" Cas asked after a couple seconds, and Alex, not sure what she _was_ doing, tried to act purposeful.

"I'm—" She looked down at the television, reached for the knob. "Uh, turning on the TV." The picture quality was horrible and she slammed the top of the TV with her fist… maybe a little harder than she needed to. The static cleared a little, and she saw Robin Williams on the screen. He was dressed in a ridiculous outfit—rainbow suspenders over a colorful shirt. Alex recognized it immediately. _Mork and Mindy_. She smiled a little bit as she remembered. "Huh. I used to watch this show as a kid."

She looked back at where Cas sat on the ridiculous bedspread, underneath the plaque that said 'Love Conquers All'. Her smile faded. This was the part where she grew up and stopped trying to make this whole Castiel thing into something it wasn't. Accepted that his devotion and care was otherworldly and learned to be okay with that, not always selfishly longing for more. She could do that. She_ would_ do that.

"_Mindy! My whole emotional life is flashing before my eyes!"_ Mork exclaimed in animated distress on the television set, and Mindy comforted him with don't worry, it was just a bad dream. Alex went back to the bed, and Mork was telling Mindy how he didn't _have _bad dreams, as his alien race had cut off the ability for bad dreams when they had cut off their emotions. Cue the laugh track. Alex remembered this episode, actually.

Cas watched her as she sat beside him on the bed, leaning against the headboard, her shoulder just a foot away from his. She glanced at him. He looked away, watched the television for a moment. "Who is the man with the hair like Sam's?" Cas asked, referring to Mork. Alex looked at him sidelong, resisting the urge to laugh out loud. "Hair like Sam's? Oh he'd_ love _that. Uh, that's Mork. He's an alien from planet Ork. He came to earth in an egg-shaped space ship. That girl is his roommate Mindy. But everyone knew they were more than that."

Cas took it all in, listening intently then frowned. "There is no such planet, Ork."

Alex did a bad job of hiding her amused smile. "It's a _fictional show_, Cas," she said. "Ork is made up. Mork is an actor named Robin Williams." Cas almost looked suspicious, and Alex tiredly chuckled, watching Cas out of the corner of her eye. Watching him was almost as entertaining as watching the show. He looked at the screen intently, as if he were staring at an impossible math equation.

"_But showing emotions is a good thing, Mork,"_ Mindy was saying kindly. Mork looked shocked. _"But Mindy—that's a no no, no no for a Nanu-Nanu!" _ Laugh track. _"Mindy, I've made a decision and I don't think you're going to like it very much."_

"_What is it?" _Mindy asked.

"_Well, I've gotta stop this before the emotions take me completely over, so… I've got this little door in the back of my mind… I'm going to round up all of my emotions put them behind that door, lock it, and hide the key… in my foot."_

There was laughter from the audience, even though Mindy looked disturbed._ "Are you saying that you won't_ feel _anything anymore?"_

"_Right on, strike up the bland," _Mork said really fast and determined, and stood up, put his hands at the side of his head. _"Goodbye Mindy! I'm closing off my emotions forever."_

Mindy jumped up after him._ "Wait a minute Mork, don't!"_

Alex yawned, not able to stop herself—she was really tired. This reminded her of the nights she and Sam had spent, wondering where Dean and Dad were. They'd always had each other and whatever local television shows had been on. He'd always try to get her to watch that Beauty and the Beast show but it was so cheesy and stupid and Alex would beg to watch The A-Team or Miami Vice instead. She blinked sleepily, getting drowsy. There was no way she could sleep though, not with her brothers out there and in danger.

"_Well you haven't convinced me that I need them," _Mork was saying, _"so on behalf of my emotions, I'd just like to say… goodbye, sayonara, ciao, ta-ta, catch you later Mama… and shalom! It's been nice feeling you."_

"_Wait a minute Mork, no, don't!"_

Mork's face had become emotionless, his voice had become monotone. _"It is too late. The door is locked. My emotions are shut off forever." _

"_Then so's the Mork who I like so well," _Mindy lamented.

"_Don't worry, we can go on having a nonemotional equivalent of fun," _Mork droned. _"There are certain advantages. Watch." _He smashed himself in the hand with a little stone statue and Mindy cried out, asked if it hurt. _"You bet," _Mork said without any feeling. "_Ow. It's killing me." _

"_So what's the advantage of that?!" _Mindy asked.

"_I can hurt myself all day without bothering other people," _was the stoic reply.

Mindy looked confused, then hurt. _"Mork, can that door in your head ever be re-opened?"_

"_Yes, but I can't do it, because what's behind there is far too dangerous."_

Mindy became angry. _"You know something, you are really DUMB."_

"_Nice try, but insults to a man with no emotions is like hay fever to a man with no nose."_

Mindy got upset, said Mork ruined her birthday, then accused him of being cold, then got quiet… sat down… said it was like part of Mork had died. And she began to cry.

"_If you think you can get to me by crying, you're wrong." _He said, but then said her name,_ "Mindy,"_ gently, worried. Then snapped to attention, his voice returning to monotone, however, it was more urgent than before_. "Fall back, systems to May Day, control tear ducts, think baseball, baseball!" _He was monotone again and sat down beside Mindy, who was still crying.

Castiel turned to Alex to ask a question—and stilled. She'd fallen asleep, head curled into the hard wood headboard of the bed, lolling uncomfortably in the space between it and her shoulder. Her mouth was open just slightly, some of her hair was in her face. She was fast asleep.

"_Ah, once again, I am in control,_" Castiel heard Mork say emotionlessly._ "I can deal with you as any other person." _There was a long pause and Mork's monotone voice softened. _"A person with invitingly soft skin. Rosebud lips. And sweet little eyes that leak cute little drops that roll gently down your cheeks..."_

Cas, unable to look away from Alex, heard those things and looked at the screen, momentarily confused, feeling strange. This Mork alien man's words struck him in a way that he felt resounding deep inside. He looked back at Alex's sleeping face. _Soft skin. Rosebud lips._ He swallowed, and briefly wondered if he should move off the bed, or if he even could muster the strength to—and then he realized that her head was slowly sliding down, tilting toward his shoulder and he froze, watching.

Her head stopped when her cheek hit his shoulder and Cas didn't move at all, because if he did, he might disrupt her rest. She shifted a little beside him and he felt a rush of protectiveness looking at how small she was. The television was now just a hum in the background. He didn't look at it, not at all. He could smell the scent of motel shampoo on Alex's hair, feel the pattern of her breathing against himself. He didn't move a muscle for a very long time.

He could see her left hand, resting, draped across her thigh, and his eyes drifted across her scarred knuckles. Above them, a smooth white scar, maybe two inches long, arced across the top of her hand. He wasn't sure what these scars were from, only that they were evidence of the life she'd lived, the pains she'd endured. He knew that on the inside of her hand a dark scar slashed across the center—from a wound inflicted in Gabriel's hell world. Each physical scar she carried was a reminder to Castiel of how fragile this human girl was. She was a strong _soul_, but contained within a vessel doomed to mortality. And he knew that her physical scars did not compare to the numbers of inner scars and burdens she'd collected over the years.

Perhaps he could do nothing to remove any scars that she had already received. But after he recovered from this temporary weakness, he was resolved to save her from the future that awaited and to keep her safe from the future in which he was the one who caused her death. Whatever he had to do, he'd do it to make sure Alex lived.

She shifted against him again, making a soft sound and Castiel felt his vessel flush all over with warmth. Perhaps he should have been more reluctant to be close like this to her. But he didn't feel that way. Cas remained unmoving the entire night, watching over her. At peace despite everything else, because he knew she was safe.

* * *

Drowsy and comfortable, Alex snuggled into the warmth beside her, sighing a soft, sleepy sound, feeling like she could stay in this half-awake state forever, feeling rested for the first time in forever, if a little sore from the weird position she'd picked to sleep in. She realized, listlessly, that she didn't have the nightmare last night._ Hmm, that was nice._ Maybe it was finally over. The shape she was cuddled into suddenly moved a little bit and her eyes shot open as she realized, remembered—_she had been sitting beside Cas in bed watching TV and... then what?_—she was staring straight at a button on the familiar beige trench coat. Panicked, she jerked upwards and found herself looking up into Castiel's face, which just above hers. _Oh my God._ She had been sleeping… on him, basically on his lap! Quickly turning red with mortified heat, Alex just stayed frozen, hoping if she did, maybe she'd wake up and this would just be some kind of freaky dream.

"Good morning, Alex," he said, and she had the brief thought, _I quit life. _He was just looking at her, his expression soft. She pushed away, embarrassed for numerous reasons, the most immediate being—had she snored? Drooled? Dean and Sam gave her crap sometimes about drooling. "Good morning," she mumbled, mortified, her eyes going all over the place, a dead giveaway of how damn awkward she felt.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked. And she knew it was just him being weirdly polite and courteous like he always was, but seriously, _are you kidding me?_ Alex wanted to fling herself into a distant galaxy. She needed to disappear. She didn't answer his question, just slid off the bed, all business. "We need to go find my brothers," she said, and grabbed her jacket off the floor, shrugging it on. She turned around to see Cas standing up and she stopped straightening the jacket, hurried over to him, already knowing where this was going.

"I can stand," he said, looking immensely excited (for Cas, anyway). He then attempted to take a step, wobbled dangerously. Alex only _just_ caught him as she reached him, bracing him with both hands. He'd grabbed onto her tightly, either arm. "Okay, okay, take it easy," Alex told him, teeth gritted as she pushed him back up. "Don't get ahead of yourself."

He was stable again, and they just stood like that for a couple more awkward seconds—Cas holding onto her as if for dear life, and her hands both against his chest, palms flat. He seemed out of breath and Alex didn't know if this could get any more awkward. "So. How about we go now," she suggested artlessly, wanting to leave, now. Not only was she anxious to find her brothers, but the awkwardness was a little too much for her.

Cas was looking down at his feet. "I think I need help walking though."

"You _think_?" Alex asked sarcastically, moving to his side and pulling one of his arms around her shoulder. Cas looked at her, one of those little proud smiles on his face. "That was sarcasm," he said, and he sounded like a little kid who had gotten excited about spelling 'cat' right.

Alex couldn't help but crack a grin as she looked down, wrapped her other arm around his waist like before. "Yes, very good young grasshopper."

He paused, and sounded confused again. "I'm not an insect."

Alex had left the stolen car—a powder blue Dodge Polara station wagon—behind the motel. She and Cas took about five minutes to walk the whole way, and he was highly ashamed of himself and his slow shuffle—she could tell. She put him into the passenger seat where he collapsed and had to pull his legs in using his arms pathetically. Alex said nothing, feeling for him. She'd been pretty messed up in her day, too, and knew it sucked to be held back by injuries.

She hot wired the car again (Cas had watched with great interest) and they drove the fifteen minutes to the house. The entire way there, she was silent, thinking hard about Sam, Dean, Mom, Dad. Hoping to find them there, but not too hopeful in case it was the same as last night. But when they pulled up, she saw a new car in the driveway. The Impala. Her heart leapt in her chest and she parked the car on the side of the street, suddenly breathless and shaking. Wherever they'd been gone to… they were back. Alex got out of the car, glancing constantly at the house for any sign of movement. She reached the passenger side, where Cas had pushed his door open and managed to get his feet on the ground. He was pulling himself upright, standing on his own slowly, stiffly. Alex stood back and let him do his thing, then couldn't help herself from commenting. "You look like an eighty year old man right now," she said, to which he gave her what could only be called a grumpy glance. "I'm tens of thousands of years old."

Alex realized she had momentarily forgotten that. "Right. Yeah." She glanced at the Winchester residence, then back at Cas. "So, uh. Follow my lead," Alex said, and helped him across the street. He was able to walk a lot better than even fifteen minutes ago, she thought. She stared at the house across from her, heart racing in anticipation. She had no idea what they would find.

The house was boxy, very sixties in its architectural style. It had a very small yard and a stoop of a porch. When they got to the door Cas indicated that he could stand on his own and they separated, but only a little. His shoulder still touched hers and she looked at him, making she he was steady. Then she stared down the door, paused, breathing heavily. She suddenly felt intimidated and afraid.

"What is it?" Cas asked.

Alex steeled herself, stared at the door. "Nothing."

She knocked three times and they waited for about fifteen seconds. The door swung open and a beautiful young blonde woman stood there. Alex went still. Mom. Alex recognized her immediately from the photos—she was younger of course. And beautiful, so much more beautiful than the photographs showed. Alex just stared at her, completely enchanted and dumbfounded. She forgot what she was doing.

"Yes?" Mary asked, looking between them expectantly. Alex swallowed. Mom was beautiful. Perfect. Young and pretty and so alive. "Can I... help you?" Mary asked, eyebrows furrowing just a little now.

"Oh—uh, hello," Alex said, and suddenly realized she had no clue what the hell to say or do—she always excelled at this stuff when she was playing FBI, but this was her mom. She hadn't even thought of making up a cover story, she'd expected Anna to be holding everyone hostage or something. But Mary was wearing a floral print apron... like she was baking. Alex glanced around behind Mom, saw nothing out of sorts. Mary was beginning to get weirded out, Alex could tell, and Cas was just staring at Alex, waiting for her to say something.

Alex busted out her best on-the-spot lie, trying to think of a way to get them in the house where she could see more and ask questions. "_We_," Alex said, gesturing between herself and Cas, speaking in an uncharacteristically perky voice, "uh, _we_ are your new neighbors. Just moved in down the street. Thought we'd come over and… say hello!" Alex listened to how ridiculous she sounded. Surely to God no one would buy that crock of crap… but Mary's face broke into a pleasant smile. "Oh, how nice!" Mary said, and stepped to the side, gestured for them to come in. Alex gave Cas a look from the side of her eyes, and hoped he got her meaning, which was 'don't say anything.' "Please, come in," Mary was saying, and then looked back into the house. "John, company!"

Alex paused, her stomach twisting at the mention of Dad and the knowledge that she was about to see him again. Mary had shut the door behind them and gestured toward the living room couch. "Please, sit down," she said graciously, and then seemed to notice Cas, who was moving very slowly and stiffly, walking on his own, but not well. Alex was staying at his side, hovering almost, making sure he made it to the couch.

Mary looked concerned. "Is... he all right?"

Cas sat down heavily. "Oh, uh yeah, he's… he's got ankle... arthritis... problems," Alex lied stutteringly as she sat beside Cas. The second she finished saying that, she realized how stupid that sounded, because Cas also looked physically ill. The arthritis claim wasn't enough. "And uh he's getting over a stomach bug," she said, feigning nonchalantness. "It really weakened him you know?" she asked. Good God Dean would kill her if he could hear these ridiculous lies pouring out of her mouth. _Dean—Sam._

Remembering herself, Alex leaned forward to ask Mary, who'd sat down across from her, about her brothers, to ask if she'd seen them—and then a familiar voice to her right startled her into silence. "Mary, what's going on?"

Alex froze at the sight of Dad approaching them from the hallway. He looked so much younger and lighter, not even like the man she remembered. But she still stiffened, sat up straight, the smile gone off her face.

"John, our new neighbors—" Mary stopped, trailing off, probably realizing she didn't know their names.

"Alex," Alex supplied, then nodded her head toward Cas. "And Cas."

"I'm Mary," Mom said. "And this is John." She tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. "_Alex_. Is that short for something?" Mary asked in polite interest. It kind of sounded like she didn't like the name Alex from the way she said it.

This was so damn ironic. "Alexandra," Alex said, watching Dad's every move hawkishly as he came around to sit beside his wife. "Oh, how pretty," Mary said, smiling again. Beside her, John took a seat, put an arm around Mary, smiled pleasantly at them. "And Cas—that must be short for Casanova," John joked, but only Mary gave him a smile at the comment. Alex was working her hands oddly in her lap, tried to smile, but couldn't even fake one. Cas's face was like stone. John frowned and looked at his wife, obviously feeling awkward, trying to make conversation. "Isn't there an Alexandra in your family, Mary?"

"Yes, my great grandmother," Mary said, also a little awkward. The clock ticked loudly in the silence.

This was going just_ fabulously_. Alex cleared her throat and took in a deep breath. Being perky was exhausting. "You know, speaking of family, I was, er, I'm looking for my brothers. Sam and Dean? They said they were stopping by here yesterday but I haven't seen them since."

"No, sorry—" John said, shaking his head, then stopped, his eyes narrowing as he frowned. "Why would they have stopped by here?"

Good friggin' question. Alex stuck her tongue out enough to wet her lips nervously. "Because—uh—"

"Because they were trying to stop an angel from the future from killing you," Cas said, breaking his silence. John and Mary looked at him like he had two heads, then at Alex for an explanation. She made a 'oh gosh, this happens all the time' face. "Don't mind Cas. Uh, he's a little loopy from the um, allergy medicine."

Mary looked at her with narrowed eyes. Alex could see growing mistrust behind the careful smile. "I thought you said he had a stomach bug."

Shit on a stick, she had forgotten that. "Oh, yeah, _yeah_, I did," Alex said, pretending to be totally confident and at ease, but inwardly scrambling, inwardly freaking out. She laughed a nervous little laugh, jerked her thumb toward a very unamused Cas. "He's got pretty bad allergies, to uh, everything..." Alex couldn't stop the bad lies from coming, a total mess under her parents confused gazes. "Grass you know and, and um also trees… bushes... it just messes him up."

Crap. _Crap!_ This could not be going any worse—Alex had never heard worse lies in her whole freaking life. Mary, however, seemed to be giving them the benefit of the doubt, standing up and giving them a smile. "Let me put on some tea."

Alex watched her mother leave. Mary could definitely tell something was up. Alex was inwardly cussing herself out for doing such a crap job of this. Dad was leaning forward over a knee, looking between them with a polite, if somewhat forced smile. "So, which house did you move into? I... don't remember one being for sale."

Of course not. "It's just a couple houses down," Alex answered vaguely, shrinking back a little under his gaze. He seemed to notice that he frowned slightly, then turned to Cas, apparently not interested in her anymore. He was looking at Cas with a certain note of suspicion. "You got a job, young man?" Alex frowned at that comment—Dad had to be like twenty-five right now, and Cas looked like at least thirty-five… why did Dad call him that?

Cas looked at John without any expression whatsoever. "Yes, I am an ang—"

"An anesthesiologist!" Alex put in fast, and gave Cas a meaningful look, to which he only frowned, clearly not understanding. Alex wanted to stand up and shout 'why?!'—she was definitely not sure if this could get any more ridiculous and the universe owed her an answer as to why this was going so horribly. But she just kept a smile plastered across her face, hoping for the best.

"So, you didn't notice two guys around yesterday?" she asked, trying to keep her face and tone pleasant. "One freakishly tall one with a lot of hair? The other one kind of smart mouthy and overbearing?"

John looked at her oddly, and shook his head. "No, can't say I saw them." He was still looking at Cas, still focused on the previous subject which Alex was trying to sidestep. "An anesthesiologist, huh? That's pretty impressive." He looked at Alex kind of appraisingly, then back at Cas again. "Now, this may be a little improper of me to say, but—_Cas_?—you look a little too old for this young lady here."

Alex's mouth dropped open and she looked at Cas, who was staring at John bleakly. Is that why he'd called him young man a minute ago—because he thought the opposite? Also: "He's not my boyfriend," Alex said, unamused.

Dad looked at her then, clearly not believing her at all. "_Really_?"

"No," Alex insisted, and raised her chin, trying to think of something. "He's my—my..." she couldn't think of anything, and Cas was speaking again. "I'm her guard—"

"My gardener!" Alex said, giving Cas an exasperated look and not even bothering to hide it. John looked at them as if he wasn't sure if they were joking or not. "Your _gardener_?"

Mary reappeared just then, a cup of tea in hand. She held it out to Cas with a smile. "Have some. Hot tea makes everything better."

"I'm not sure that's true," Castiel said with narrowed eyes. Alex nudged him with her knee, and he looked at her, got a weird look from the side of her eyes. He looked back at Mary, expression still a little perplexed. He took the tea. "But thank you."

Mary sat back down after telling Cas again to 'drink up' and Alex tried to think of something normal to say or comment on. "Your home is lovely," she said, but honestly she hadn't noticed one damn thing about it. "Just the right size to start a family," she continued with false cheer.

Mary seemed to automatically beam at that comment, looked at John adoringly, who smiled at her, put his hand on hers. Alex's heart tugged a little, her facade wobbled. My God, they were in love. John was chuckling. "I can't wait to have a house full of boys."

Alex felt her smile fade a little at that comment. "_John_," Mary laughed, pushing him lightly, playfully. "What?" he grinned. "I wouldn't know what to _do_ with a girl."

"That's apparent," Cas muttered darkly. John heard that and frowned, and Mary too. In fact, she stood up, smiled tightly now. "Alex, before you two go… can I get you to help me with something in the kitchen?"

"I'm... not good in the kitchen…" Alex protested, but Mary insisted. "It'll take two seconds, sweetie, now come on."

Okay, so they were about to be kicked out. And with no answers, either! Where the hell were Sam and Dean? Alex stood up, and John did too in unison, his hulking six-foot-two frame dwarfing Alex and Mary both. "I've gotta grab my jacket and head to work," John said, apologetically, and walked toward Alex, held out his hand—and Alex literally flinched away by instinct. He frowned at her reaction, seemed taken aback. "Just… wanted to shake your hand, neighbor," John said, and Alex, recovered, feigned casual pleasantness again, reached out, shook his hand. "Right. Nice to meet you, John."

"You too, Alex." He seemed kind of guarded toward her now. Alex felt bad about it, too. This wasn't the Dad she'd known. Not at all.

John moved over to the couch and held his hand out to Cas, who still sat on the couch, holding his tea cup sullenly in both hands. He didn't make a single move. In fact he was looking at John with something close to loathing. John gave up, looking confused, and he walked back down the hallway. Mary clearly got the same awkward vibes everyone else was getting, but gave Cas a polite little smile anyway. "Drink your tea," she said, again, to Cas, then led Alex toward the kitchen.

Mom was super nice, making tea for the sick guy, insisting he drink it a couple times over—they walked into the kitchen and suddenly Alex was flying sideways into the wall. Mom slammed her there, holding her there with one hand—the other hand held a really huge hunting knife at Alex's throat. "_Who are you_?" Mary demanded.

Surprised, Alex stared at her mom, more impressed with her than anything else. Maybe she should be alarmed that someone was threatening her life, but all she could think was that Dean hadn't been lying… Mom was bad _ass_! "I said _who are you_?" Mary repeated in a low hiss. "You've got hunter written all over you," she shoved Alex a little harder, demandingly. "Are you here to hurt my husband? What do you _want_?"

"I'm looking for my brothers like I said," Alex said honestly, and got another shove in reply. "Stop with the lies and tell me who you are," Mary demanded.

Okay then.

In the space of one single second, Alex grabbed the handle of Mom's knife with one hand, slid her other arm between their bodies in unison even as she savagely bent the knife out of Mom's grip easily, she used her arm as leverage and whirled Mom around, slammed her against the wall—and suddenly they were just as they had been before, but now Alex was the one in control, the one holding the knife. Mary looked surprised more than anything else. Alex turned the knife away, raised her eyebrows meaningfully, showing her mom she wasn't an enemy. "Who are you?" Mary asked again, but quietly this time. Alex drew in a deep breath. Hell, she had no other clue what to do, so she told the truth. "I'm Alex. Winchester." She stepped back, letting mom go. "Your… your daughter."

Mary's expression went from 'did I hear you right' to 'are you fucking kidding me' to 'wait…' in the span of three seconds. She opened her mouth to say something, but then stopped, looking at Alex carefully, scrutinizing her completely. For a brief second, Alex had this insane hope that Mom was going to look at her and _see_ who she was, _recognize _her somehow… but that didn't happen. Mom's expression changed, went cold. "You're _crazy_," she said, and grabbed Alex roughly by her jacket—then her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell over unconscious.

"What the hell Cas?!" Alex exclaimed in horror—Cas had stepped in, touched two fingers to Mary's head, rendering the woman into an unconscious heap. "What did you do?"

"Michael," Cas said, breathing heavily, standing oddly. "He was here."

"Where?" Alex asked, suddenly stock still.

"In John."

Alex looked at him like he'd gone stark raving mad. "_What_?"

"I'm not sure how or why, but Michael used John—your father as a vessel."

"Her _father_?" Came a new voice. "The hell are you talking about?" John was there behind them, in the doorway, wearing a jacket and a freaked out expression—and then he saw Mary on the floor and fear flashed across his features, he took a step back, looked at Alex, then Cas in fear. "What did you _do_ to my _wife_?"

"She'll be fine, John," Cas said flatly, uncaringly, then looked at Alex. "She put a dangerous amount of sedatives in the tea. Of course, they won't affect me. I don't think."

Alex gaped at Cas, then looked at Mom. Wow, that was double impressive. Sneaky.

"Who are you people?" John demanded, to which Castiel drew himself up a little bit. "I'm an angel of the Lord."

John's expression darkened—an expression Alex recognized. "Buddy, drugs are _bad_," he said, and Alex suddenly saw, tried to warn Cas with a shout—she recognized when her dad was about to snap—John charged the couple feet between himself and Cas, slammed the angel up against the wall. Alex went up and tried grabbing John's shoulder to yank him off Cas, but John shoved her away, hard, and she fell down backwards. "What did you do to her?" John screamed at Cas, shaking him roughly. "Tell me, _now_!"

Cas just stared down at John his expression chilling, calm. "Do not presume to tell me what to do, John Winchester," he said lowly, and brought his two fingers to John's temple. "Now, forget."

John crumpled to the floor. Alex, shakily getting up from where she'd been shoved, looked at Cas in a mixture of disbelief and confusion. "Forget? _Forget_? You just erased their memories?"

He ignored her question, stumbled over to her. "Why didn't you tell me that your father mistreated you?" he demanded, and Alex took a step back, bumping up against the kitchen counter. "What?" she asked, barely a whisper.

"You're scared of him," Cas said, almost angrily. "You were afraid when he tried to shake your hand."

"No I wasn't," Alex protested, shaking her head repeatedly. Cas just stepped closer, his expression so intense. "Did he strike you in anger?"

Alex went cold. "How dare you ask me that," she said, and it was supposed to be anger that she asked it with, but instead, her voice shook with total and utter fear.

Cas's frown changed from anger to deep sadness. Like he saw right through her, and knew the answer was yes. He looked so deeply affected by it that Alex couldn't keep looking at him. She swallowed painfully. "It wasn't… it wasn't a lot, okay? It was only when he drank a lot. And only when I _deserved_ it," she said more angrily, then brushed past him brusquely, trying to shove her emotions down deep where they couldn't surface, because they hurt too much and she had thought she was done with this crap a long time ago.

Behind her, Cas hadn't turned around. They faced opposite directions. "How could a child _deserve_ such a thing?" he asked quietly. He truly didn't understand. As he looked down at John Winchester's unconscious form, his fist curled tightly at his side in unadulterated anger. Ever since stepping into this house and seeing the man walk into the room, Castiel had been fighting fury and anger toward him. Because he'd known this man had undervalued his daughter, had failed to protect her and considered _giving her away_—but this new revelation he discovered just moments ago—that John Winchester had physically hurt or intimidated his daughter to whatever extent great or small—made Castiel feel like his blood was boiling beneath his skin, made him want to obliterate this man.

Alex turned around, looked at Cas, saw his fist, saw his angry stare aimed at her dad. He seemed entirely focused on John, breathing heavily, eyes heavy lidded and face like stone. "Cas." She said, but he didn't look away from her dad. She went over to him, grabbed his arm in appeal. "_Cas_! This guy right here—he's not the guy who pushed me around as a kid." He looked at her, his venomous expression fading. Alex's heart almost stopped when she realized his face right then—it was the exact same expression Dean had always had when Dad had gone off the rails and shoved her or yelled at her or, yes, a few times, struck her. Alex looked away, ashamed.

Cas's fist loosened, then relaxed completely, and he looked morose once more. Alex shook her head, let go of Cas's arm. This was a mess, a total mess. She put her hands on either side of her, palms facing in, frustrated. "Okay, just—just _forget _all this—" she said, chopping her hands forward, "Where the hell are Sam and Dean?"

He looked at her for a long, tense moment. "I won't forget this," he said, responding grimly to the first part of what she'd said. "But I'll respect your wishes if you don't want to speak of it again." He looked unhappy about it, but seemed to drop it, squinting around the kitchen, his eyes seeming to take in things that she couldn't see. "They're not here anymore," he said. "I'm fairly certain."

"How?" Alex asked.

"Their minds were tampered with recently, and Michael's presence… I can sense it… he must have sent them back."

"Their minds were tampered with recently? Wasn't that _you_ just now?" she asked cynically. He glanced at her. "No. Well, yes. But their memories were altered recently, before I even touched them."

Alex shook her head, unhappy. "Did you really have to do that?" It bothered her. And she hadn't wanted that moment with her mom to end… even if Mom had been about to kick her ass.

"I wanted to keep the timeline uncomplicated," Cas said simply, to which Alex gave him a look that said 'really?' She didn't believe that for a second. "After all the crap about fate being unchangeable?" she asked angrily.

"There are certain rules which must be observed when dealing with time travel—" Cas was saying, but Alex, and the end of her rope channeled her oldest brother by cutting him off, shouting "_bullshit_!"

Cas's expression flickered as if in surprise, then became tightly drawn and Alex stood there breathing heavily for a couple seconds, then shut her eyes tight a second. "I need a drink," she muttered before opening her eyes up again.

Cas looked surprisingly guilty, staring down at John and Mary. "I could… undo it..." he said, his eyes falteringly came back to hers, waiting for her to tell him what to do. Alex looked at him in a mixture of unhappiness at him but also at herself. She was pissed that he'd done that, but... it didn't_ really_ matter if Mary and John Winchester remembered this weirdo couple in their house in 1978, did it? And when she thought it over objectively, Cas _had_ said all that stuff about being an angel and then Mom had figured out something was up and attacked her in the kitchen—Dad walked in on it all… Alex's indignant anger was fading rapidly. Instead, she just felt sad, looking down at her pretty blonde mom on the floor. Then her dad, before he had even _been _her dad. This was beyond screwed up.

Cas squinted, put a hand to his head, and Alex glanced at him, then went to him—was he about to start spewing blood again? Then she realized he was listening to something, not in pain. "It's Dean. He's calling to me from 2010." He looked at her. "We should go."

Alex felt her eyebrows raise in trepidation, she looked at him apprehensively. "Cas, you can barely stand up now, how are you supposed to be able to make another trip?"

"It will be easier with just you," he said.

"Just as long as you're sure you'll be all right," she said, and looked at him carefully. He looked distinctly regretful, then met her eyes somberly.

"I'm not sure of anything anymore," he said, and if the mood had been lighter, Alex might have joked about him being emo. But he meant it, and she could tell. And it kind of worried her, honestly, all this talk recently about his 'bad choices' and uncertainty about making decisions, his insistence that he was useless and a failure. Something was going on with him. He paused, looked at her parents still forms on the kitchen floor. "I can still change it back."

Alex looked at them too. Memorized Mom's face. "No. It doesn't matter. _I _remember." She faced him and took in a deep breath, nodded once. "I'm ready to go now."

He'd touched their foreheads when he brought them to 1978. But with just Alex, he reached out and grasped her shoulder instead.

"Jesus _Christ_, Sam," Dean was saying, sounding like he'd reached the end of his rope. "What the hell are we supposed to do?"

Alex and Cas were in the motel room where this crazy thing had all started, and Dean was on a bed, sitting there, faced away, Sam beside him, turned away too. In front of Alex, Cas pitched forward and she staggered as he pretty much fell forward onto her. "Guys, help me!" she gasped, and both brothers whirled at the sound of her voice. Sam, closer, got to her first, grabbing Cas's woozy form easily, getting him under one arm. "Hey. Hey, hey! Whoa, I gotcha!"

Dean caught him under the other arm a fraction of a second later, and looked at Alex with complete and utter relief on his face. "You crazy kids," he said, "You made it!"

Cas looked almost drunk, staring at something that wasn't there. "I'm—uhhh," he mumbled, and his eyes rolled back as his head fell backwards limply.

"Not _again_," Alex muttered, and then pointed at one of the beds, chagrined. Her brothers hauled him over to the bed and flopped him down, then turned to look at her. She looked from Cas's unconscious form to them. "Hi," she said tiredly, and smiled at them, relieved, exhausted emotionally, so glad it was over.

Sam came over and hugged her tightly and she protested a little, "Mffmfff, Sam!" her face smushed up against his massive chest. "We, uh, got a little worried," he explained, letting her go. "A _little_?" she asked, rubbing her jaw like he'd hurt her in the hug.

Dean was still beside Cas, looking down at him intently, checking his pulse and breathing. "Seems okay," he said. Alex came over to thew other side of the bed. "How long was he out the first time?" he asked, seeming concerned about Cas.

"About three hour, maybe four hours," Alex said, watching Cas, remembering cleaning him up, remembering Candy Land, remembering sleeping next to him...

"So what'd you guys do when he woke up?" Dean asked, and even though he tried to sound casual, Alex heard the hidden, suspicious question. She looked at him, completely deadpan. "We had lots and_ lots _of sex Dean."

Sam laughed out loud at that and Alex's serious expression gave way to a pleased with herself smile. Dean, of course, was giving Sam the evil eye, then made a face at Alex. "Ha ha," he rolled his eyes. "Very funny." He looked like he'd never heard anything stupider. "Don't even joke about that," he said, and Alex looked at Dean challengingly. "What the hell do you _think_ I did?" she asked. "I went and looked for you when you didn't show. Couldn't find you. Met Mom and Dad though." She shook her head a little. "Good times."

Sam seemed piqued at that. "Did they remember us visiting?"

"No," Alex said. "They don't remember any of it. Cas took their memories when we left, too. Don't know how, he's so friggin' low on battery power." They all looked at the still form of Cas on the bed.

"I could use a drink now," Dean said. "Beers all around?"

"I don't know about you guys but beer's not gonna cut it," Alex said.

"Bring out the Jack," Sam agreed, and Dean rolled his eyes, but complied. He got out some plastic cups and a bottle of whiskey.

"What happened? With Anna?" Alex asked. Dean poured three drinks. She watched Cas quietly as he explained.

"Well, Anna's dead—Michael ganked her, didn't seem to like her plan to kill Sammy. Michael used Dad as a meatsuit." Dean chuckled darkly, handed a cup to Sam. "More on _that_ later. My brain is fried. But the short and sweet version is that Mom's fine, Dad's fine, Sam's fine. And we didn't change a _damn thing_." He handed Alex her cup, looked at her, then Sam, then Cas. "Well… I guess this is it," Dean said.

"This is what?" Sam asked.

"Team Free Will. One ex-blood junkie, one dropout with six bucks to his name, one punkass kid sister, and Mr. Comatose over there. It's awesome."

"You're not funny," Alex commented, downing a huge gulp of the whiskey.

Dean shrugged. "I'm not laughing."

"What are you talking about, anyway? Team Free Will?" Sam asked.

"They all say we'll say yes," Dean said. "And it's getting pretty damn annoying."

"Annoying?" Alex questioned, looking at him sidelong. "What if they're right?"

Dean took another drink. "They're not."

There was a pause. "They might be," Alex said. She didn't like it, but she wasn't going to avoid it, either. Dean looked at her, expression hovering between a glare and a grimace. "Don't say that, Al."

Alex shrugged, set the cup down on the dresser beside her. "I'm just saying. You've tried to change the past _twice _now. And neither time worked. Why's the future gonna be any different?"

"Geez, Miss Optimistic," Dean said. "Because I've_ decided._ Maybe we can't change the past, but the future ain't written yet."

"Do you really think you can say no _forever_?" Alex asked. "Run from fate or destiny, whatever, _forever_?"

"Fate?" Dean repeated, like it was a bad word. "_Please_. Don't tell me you believe in that BS."

Sam, who'd been quiet this whole time, sipping his drink, finally spoke up. "Michael got Dad to say yes."

"That was different," Dean said immediately. "Anna was about to kill Mom."

Sam looked at Dean intently. "And if you could save Mom... what would _you _say?" He hesitated a long time, then looked at Alex. "If you could save… Alex, Dean... what would you say?"

"What do you mean?" Alex asked, her frown matching Dean's. Sam shrugged, set his drink down too, looked at his twin with a great deal of apprehensiveness. "Sooner or later they're gonna try to use you against us. I mean, they already have a little," Sam said. Referring loosely to the whole Lucifer thing. Alex looked down.

Dean took a deep breath, staring at his now-empty cup. "Why do you think I've been such a pain in the ass lately? I know that. I'm just waiting for someone to swoop in and take her from us. And I can never decide if she's safer with us or without and I can't friggin' take much more."

Sam frowned, looking at the bed behind Alex and Dean. "Whoa—where'd Cas go?"

They all looked at the bed—empty. "Friggin' angels, man," Dean said, aggravated. He went over to pour himself more whiskey as Alex looked around, flabbergasted.

"My life blows," Dean said, and raised his once-again full cup. "Here's to that."

Alex ignored him, staring at the bed for a couple seconds, then decisively grabbing up her duffel bag. She grabbed her phone out of the side pocket where she'd shoved it last, threw a "be right back" over her shoulder. She hurried outside the motel room, stood near the chipped metal railing there and scrolled through her contacts. Found who she was looking for and hit 'call.' It rang twice.

"Hello, Alex," Cas answered.

"Why do you always leave like that?" she demanded without ceremony.

There was a pause. "Like what?"

"Without a single word or a goodbye," She said, sounding a little madder than she meant to sound. She tried to calm herself, took a deep breath. "You were passed out on the bed and then you just disappeared—I mean… are you okay?"

"Yes," his deep voice replied. "Perfectly fine."

"Perfectly fine?" she repeated. "Like last time 'perfectly fine'?"

There was another pause. "You shouldn't worry about me."

She paused, made a face, then smiled helplessly, watching the traffic passing out on the highway in front of the motel. "Yeah well. Too late for that."

"I see," he replied, and Alex felt herself growing introspective at dangerous levels. She felt like she needed to tell him something substantial, something meaningful. "Cas—" she couldn't think of how to say all she was feeling and thinking. So she settled on, "I hope you feel better soon."

"Thank you, Alex." There was a long pause. "Should... we end the call now?"

Alex shook her head, smiling to herself. As usual, she found his social awkwardness completely perfect. "Sounds good."

"All right." A pause. "You… ass."

Alex did a double take, not sure what—and then she remembered in the motel room. How she'd told him families and friends got to call each other mean names and how it wasn't really mean. She got a huge grin when she understood. "Okay, I'll… seeya around... jerkface," she replied, and chuckled, bit her lip, watching a school bus drive by.

She wondered what kind face he was making at this point. Maybe a little smile, maybe a confused expression. It was probably hilarious, whatever it was. He had gone quiet again, then asked: "Is this the part where we hang up?"

She held back a laugh, just barely. "Uh, yes," Alex said. Another long pause. "Now?" Cas asked. Alex was laughing now despite her best efforts—these funny Cas moments were always so out of left field, and she wasn't good at not being one hundred perfect amused by them. "Yes,_ now," _she said, grinning. "Bye." She closed her phone. And the realized someone was standing behind her. She turned.

"Finally called that guy from the bar, huh?" Dean asked, giving her a toothy grin. Shit, how long had he been there, and wait—what guy from what bar? Oh wait. Yeah, some guy had given her his number last week. She didn't even remember what he looked like. She ignored Dean's question, rolled her eyes, hoping he wouldn't ask again. He took a swig of beer, came to stand beside her, lean over the railing. He looked at her long and hard.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked, guarded.

"You saw Dad. Met Mom. Trippy, right?"

"That's a good word for it I guess," Alex said, thought about it a minute. She smiled really faintly, remembering fondly. "Mom was… so beautiful. And kind of kick ass."

"Right?" Dean asked. He sounded so proud.

"I think maybe she might have been able to kick my ass on a good day," Alex said, grinning crookedly. "I wish I had known her. Even just a little while." She looked at Dean sadly. "You're lucky."

"I guess. But not lucky enough." Dean paused, darkening, and Alex knew he was thinking about howMom had died, wondering if he could have stopped it. She picked at one of her nails in distraction. "Dad was… different."

"Yeah, uh. He was." They were silent for a really long moment. Dean seemed to sense Alex's internal thoughts.

"You'll drive yourself crazy if you think about it too much," he told her.

"Think about what?"

"What would have changed," he said. "If the fire never happened."

Alex didn't have to wonder. "Everything would have changed. Everything."

Alex oddly found herself remembering a very random moment from childhood—God, how old had she been… maybe seven or eight? She'd been small for her age then. Dad had been teaching them to shoot shotguns.

"_Hold it tight into your shoulder or the kick can break your bone," Dad said, pulling the butt of the gun into Alex's shoulder tightly, yanking her arm up so that the heavy-to-her shotgun was straighter. Dean, watching from the sidelines, looked uncertain. "Dad, I don't think she's—"_

_John gave his son a dangerous, silencing look. "Dean, we've been over this. Your sister needs to be able to shoot this damn thing if she's alone and unprotected, you hear me?" He turned back to Alex, who was struggling to hold the shotgun up. "Now line up the sights and fire and," he made a frustrated, impatient sound as she struggled, "for Christsakes, hold the damn thing into your shoulder like I _told_ you."_

_She tried to do what he said, to stop pissing him off, to just do something right. The shotgun had been so heavy to her, and she had barely been able to lift it, let alone solidly aim it or anything. She'd squeezed the trigger and the gun went off. And she'd tried so hard to not cry from the immediate pain when the butt of the gun slammed into her little shoulder, but she hadn't been able to stop herself. Dad had looked down at her, seeming to be annoyed, disgusted that she was acting like that. "Stop that Alex. Don't cry about it. It hurts a little now but this will save your life someday, you hear me? This will _save_ your _life_." He seemed to relent a little at the sight of her distress and patted her roughly on the head. He'd crouched down to her level. She remembered how strongly he smelled of alcohol. "Sorry, Alex. Maybe you're not ready for this, huh?" he stood up as if to walk off and a switch had flipped inside Alex._

_Defiant, determined, she'd glared, cocked the shotgun (a feat in and of itself) and reassumed the aiming stance, already wincing. She'd fired another shot, and the pain had been even worse the second time. John—Dad—looked proud of her then. She did it a third time, barely able to hold back tears of pain. And finally she'd gotten a, "that's my girl." And then Sam said something, called Dad over. Dad walked away. And Dean, watching silently, saw Alex break down crying silently, cradling her shoulder alone. _

_The bruise and the pain had lasted for weeks. _

"You okay? Alex?" Dean's voice startled Alex out of the memory. "Uh, yeah. Just thinking," she said. He nodded. He seemed to get it. For all the times Dean was an asshole to her, they really did have an understanding when it came to certain things. And Dad was one of them.

Alex cleared her throat, turned her head toward him. "You know, for a little while there, I thought you guys were dead back in 1978. When I couldn't find you."

Dean looked at her, expression heavy, sad. He heard what she hadn't said. "I won't leave you, Alex, not forever. You know that."

Alex shook her head, cynical eyes going down into middle space. "I don't believe you," she said, being bluntly honest. "Everyone always leaves."

Dean took another swig of his beer. "Well, not me."

Alex shot him a threatening look. "Better not." She tilted her head to the side, thinking of something, and straightened up a little bit, poked him with her index finger. "Hey, also. You owe me a damn apology."

Instead of getting pissy or defensive or asking 'what the hell for' like she thought he would—Dean nodded, stared out in front of him. "For what Gabriel showed you. Yeah. I know. And I _am_ sorry." There was a long pause. "I didn't mean it, I was just… trying to get Dad to take me with him." He sighed regretfully, and he sounded like he was talking to himself now. "The things I did to try and get on that man's good side." He let the thought go, turned back to her. "You're my kid sister and I'd do anything for you."

"Well, you should have apologized a lot sooner, jerk," Alex said, half-serious, half-joking. Dean heaved a heavy sigh, getting uncomfortable. "I know. I just… these chick flick moments, man," he complained.

"Shut up," Alex teased, grinning at him, bumping his shoulder with hers. "You love them."

Dean's face changed and looked at her with the most emotionally open expression she'd ever seen on his face before. He shook his head. "I love _you_."

Alex froze and looked at him in shock, not sure if she'd heard right. "You what? Are you… are you _dying _or something?" she asked. She wasn't really joking, either.

He looked chagrined at her question. "Can't a big brother… tell a little sister… you know, that he loves her?"

Alex looked around for the hidden cameras. "Yeah... but you never say that. Well, wait. You said it to me before the Hellhounds, and… nope, I don't think ever before that."

Dean set his beer down on the railing, leaned his hands both on it heavily. "I just don't wanna lose you. Or Sam."

"You won't," she said, confused by his quick apology, his expression of affection, and this cryptic statement about losing her and Sam. He turned his head and looked at her, then he reached for her, pulled her into a tight hug. Hugs from Dean usually comforted her. But this one just made her feel like something was really wrong.

* * *

**That Night**

In the dim light of the bedside table, the only one awake, Alex smoothed Dad's journal open, opening it to the first few pages; to the entries she'd always read the most. After seeing Dad earlier today… she felt like she needed to revisit these pages. The entries in the beginning were the most personal... they got more and more about supernatural stuff and less and less about Dad's thoughts as the journal progressed…. but in the beginning, it was just Dad, his thoughts, his worries, a glimpse into who he'd been before the hunt had overtaken him. Alex used to read and re-read some of these entries, because some parts of them had made her feel closer to Dad. She'd been able to tell from these that he'd _really_ loved her once, that he hadn't always looked at her and seen her as an obligation.

_**December 4, 1983**_

_Last night I was sitting in the kid's room, in the dark, and I heard these noises… Mike said it was the wind, and okay, maybe it was, but it sounded almost like whispering, like someone was whispering a name, under their breath, again and again… like something is out there in the dark, watching us… I stayed up all night, just watching them, protecting them. From what, I don't know. Am I protecting them? Am I hurting them? I haven't let them out of my sight since the fire. Dean still hardly talks. I try to make small talk, or ask him if he wants to throw the baseball around. Anything to make him feel like a normal kid again. He never budges from my side – or from his brother and sister. Every morning when I wake up, Dean is inside their crib, one arm wrapped around each of the twins. Like he's trying to protect them from whatever is out there in the night._

_Sammy cries a lot, wanting his Mom. And Alex still doesn't make a sound. Sometimes her face scrunches up like she's crying, but no sounds come out. It scares the hell out of me and I don't know what to do. One twin can't stop crying, the other is just—silent. It breaks my heart to think that soon they won't remember Mary at all. I can't let her memory die._

Alex turned the page.

_**December 11, 1983**_

_Sammy has finally started sleeping through the night, and now that Dean shares a bed with him and his sister, he's out like a light as well. I'm not sure about Alex… before the fire, she always wanted to be rocked to sleep and I loved that time. She'd lay her little head on my shoulder and I'd rub her back. She would make these sweet little sleepy sounds in my ear. Now, she doesn't sleep unless she's sandwiched between her brothers. I sometimes try rocking her to sleep and she cries silently, won't hold still. It breaks my heart. I keep hoping things will return to normal, but they don't._

Alex paused sadly. That line in there about the sweet sleepy sounds. It always grabbed right at her heart. She'd always felt the love and tenderness of a father from him when she read that. That he loved to rock her to sleep as a baby and hear the sounds she'd made. The idea of him holding her close, her head resting on his shoulder in trust and attachment. Alex had all but memorized this entry when she was younger, because approval and affection were so few and far between from Dad. In fact, by the time she was old enough to read and write, he'd be all but emotionally dead to her. He'd kept her at arm's length pretty much until Sam left for Stanford. And then it had been far, far too late.

_**December 25, 1983**_

_Didn't sleep again last night. Woke up in a cold sweat and realized it was Christmas. Where's Mary? That was my thought all night, and it stayed in my mind all day. Christmas without my wife seems unreal. Our celebration was clumsy… a crooked two foot tall plastic tree, a bunch of junk food stuffed in the stockings, and a pile of sports equipment for the boys… football, basketball, soccer. I didn't really know what to get for Alex, girl stuff was Mary's forte, and I got so depressed in the aisle of girl toys that I couldn't buy a thing._

_I think about my reality. Mary will never see Dean hit a home run. She'll never see Alex learn to walk, or hear Sammy say his first words. She won't take Dean to his first day at school, or stay up all night with me worrying the first night he takes the car out. It's not right that she's not here, and that's all I could think about today—that and I really don't think I know how to parent alone. I'm so angry I can barely see straight – I just want my wife back._

_The police have officially declared our case closed. What a Christmas present, huh?_

Alex's eyes hovered over this line:_ I got so depressed in the aisle of girl toys that I couldn't buy a thing._ Alex remembered the first time she read this journal entry and saw that line, she'd felt so guilty for being a girl; for being something that reminded her dad of his dead wife. After reading that, Alex had gotten upset (understatement, really) and brutally ripped all the arms and legs off her Barbies, gotten the scissors out to cut her hair off. Dean had found her and calmed her down, stopped her from cutting off her hair. Held her tight while she cried in silence. Alex shook her head now, realizing how ironic it was, how Dean had done all the stuff a father should do for her throughout the years. He'd gotten on her case about her abysmal grades (she hadn't cared about school), he'd gotten pissed at her when she mooned around in teenage despair. He'd protected her and Sammy from dad's drunken rages. Her throat hitched as Alex thought maybe the reason she and Dean had always been so close was because they knew their Dad's anger better than Sammy did. They had always turned to each other for help making it through.

Alex turned the page and hesitated. She didn't like to read this entry, but she always did anyway, unable not to. She didn't even know why Dad had kept it in there, honestly. There were a lot of torn out pages, but this one had stayed.

_**February 8, 1984**_

_Today I don't know what happened. I was trying to piece together some things I'd found from local newspapers. Stuff about bizarre murders. I was thinking maybe they were somehow related to Mary's death, because the reports said the people had died in really strange ways—their insides had completely liquified. Well, I was trying to do all this and Sammy was fussing, Alex was getting into everything (she's toddling all over the place these days) and Dean was trying to get me to help him with this Lego thing he was building. He kept trying to get me to come over, and at one point he grabbed at my arm and asked Daddy please. I don't know what came over me, but all the anger and maybe some of the alcohol too, it just set me off. I snapped at him and shoved him away, harder than I should have, and he fell backwards into little Alex, who had been walking behind him. She hit her face hard on the edge of the coffee table. She made no sound, she never does, but she was crying, her eyebrow was gashed open and bleeding. I scooped her up and yelled at Dean, about what he had done to his sister. Sammy started screaming real loud when I did that. And Dean shrank away from me. _

_I'm left wondering what the hell this is doing to me. If I can do this at all. Sometimes I think I should just let it go and focus on the kids. _

_But this is something I have to do. I have to make sure Mary's death is avenged, if it's the last thing I do. Nothing else matters as much as that. _

Alex re-read the last lines, the ones that made her heart clench. _Nothing else matters as much as that._ She believed those words completely. Her life, her brothers' lives were evidence of that. She shut her eyes, set the journal down onto her knees.

_"He was a good man. I _know_ he was."_

Alex had said this to Cas the other day. She considered for a moment her words and the meaning, the desperation and heaviness behind them. John Winchester _was_ a good man. Or at least, she believed that he _had _been, once. But over the years, he forfeited his heart in favor of a mission he could never accomplish. John Winchester had lost sight of what remained, blinded by the lure of retaliation and vengeance. Nothing—no one—had mattered to him as much as the thought of killing whatever had killed Mom. And everyone around him had paid the price of his obsession. Alex's heart broke anew every time she thought of the man her father had become. She had seen with her own eyes, just today, that he wasn't always that way. Azazel had changed all of their lives, forever. Wrecked the family almost completely.

And maybe Dad got what he wanted in the end—Azazel, dead—but at what cost? Dad was dead and gone. Killing Azazel didn't bring Mom back. It didn't fix any of the problems the Winchester family had been subjected to. Yes, Alex and her brothers had survived, but just barely, and to do _what_? To be on their own, left to deal with the devastating emotional aftermath. All they had left was each other, and even that was falling apart.

She thought of who John Winchester had been, and who he had turned into. A man who had left his children with a cursed existence. _He was a good man. I know he was. _And he had been. He had been. The darkness, the warfare, it had taken who he was. Alex opened her eyes again, bowed her head, reflecting sadly that this must be what happened when a good man went to war.

At that thought, she looked over at Dean, asleep, above the covers as always. Her eyes flickered to Sam's hulking outline on the other bed beyond. They were good men. The best. And they were at a war like no other.

She would give anything to save them. But somewhere, deep inside, she had a dark, creeping fear that nothing could save them. Nothing.

* * *

_Author's Notes: CRYING. I cannot believe how long this chapter became, all the family feelings and Calex stuff and sdflkjdsfldskjf! Also. THE MY BLOODY VALENTINE EPISODE CHAPTER IS NEXT OMGGGG. YOU GUYS AHHH. BTW note to readers, I have changed the rating of this story to M in anticipation of um, upcoming chapters. HAVE A NICE DAY BYE :D leave a review if you want to live, etc._


	26. Insatiable

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 26 / Insatiable

"_The heart wants what it wants."  
- Emily Dickinson_

* * *

**Three Days Later  
Plainville, Kansas  
Valentine's Day**

Agent Wailer—a.k.a. Alex Winchester—shrugged off her suit jacket, laid it over the chair on top of Sam and Dean's. She wore her typical FBI getup—black dress shoes (not heels—she refused), and a pale blue button up tucked neatly into navy slacks. She'd made an effort on the hair—pulled it half back, made it look sort of decent for once. She glanced up at Agents Marley and Cliff—Dean and Sam. They were rolling up their sleeves because this particular examination was about to get a little messy. Smiling a little to herself, Alex reflected that this was typical that they would spend Valentine's Day this way.

Usually when they ran their FBI sham, they divided and conquered—Dean always headed it up, took one of the twins with him while the other one checked into other leads or just sat it out. After all, three agents in one place was unnecessary most times and tended to raise eyebrows. But none of the Winchesters had wanted to miss out on _this_ particular case. It was weird, even for them. A couple had literally_ eaten_ each other to death—leaving very little for the coroner to let them examine, but, still. The same night that this apparently ravenous couple had eaten it (Dean's pun, not Alex's), another couple had shot and killed each other in a double suicide. It wasn't clear if the deaths were related or not. It was really sad, Alex reflected, that two people in love would do something like that to each other. The eating and the suicide both. Something supernatural was definitely involved, at least on account of the couple who ate each other.

Saint James Medical Center's morgue's coroner, a rotund and jovial old guy, had done what most people did: taken one look at their FBI badges and given them free run of the place—just instructed that they just put the body parts back where they'd found them—which was the refrigerator. Dean snapped on some latex gloves, then tossed a pair to each of his siblings. Alex caught hers, yanked them on, then grabbed one of the disposable blue aprons that Sam and Dean were already wearing, putting it on as she watched Sam bring over several clear containers of bloody human remains.

He set them down onto the stainless steel examination table in the middle of the room while Alex looked through drawers for tongs. "Geez, there's not much left of these people..." Dean commented as he looked over the containers and took a seat at the head of the table. He pulled one of the bins to himself.

Alex sat down across from Sam, set down a handful of tongs and opened the container in front of her—some entrails. _Nice_. She was suddenly rethinking her eagerness to come along to the morgue on this one. She poked through them unenthusiastically with a pair of tongs. Wondered where Cas was. She paused, not seeing what was in front of her. It had been three days since they'd physically seen him. She had texted him yesterday, not able to hold herself back anymore, needing to just know he was still alive, basically. **Are you okay?** She'd asked. He'd replied, about a minute later, **yes**. And that had been that. She had almost texted him back about ten times after that, but then hadn't. Nothing she thought of to write made sense. And she still kind of got the feeling he was avoiding her, or… geez, _something_. She didn't get it.

Before, she'd never really been too concerned when he disappeared. It was just his mode of operation, appearing unexpectedly, leaving without notice—but now, after seeing him so banged up and weakened, it was hard not to worry about him, not call him and demand to get a status update on his well-being. This was new: she hadn't really worried about him before… he was a freaking _angel_ for crying out loud—but the past few days worrying about him was pretty much _all_ she'd done. Well, she'd also replayed the time in the honeymoon suite over in her head a million times. She thought about how she'd shared things with Cas that she didn't really share with anyone else. She thought about how she'd fallen asleep on him—and subsequently slept the best she had in months (and thought she might not mind doing that again…). But most of all she thought about how she'd forgotten, briefly, about the emergency surrounding them, the whole Anna set on murdering her parents thing—in some small, still moments there with Cas, an odd peacefulness had existed between them. Alex hadn't meant for it to happen but she'd felt close to him, safe, and now, there was a noticeable, underlying pang in his absence.

She knew what it was like to miss people—but she missed him in a way she had never missed anyone else. She stabbed at the entrails in front of her bleakly. This sucked.

Dean mumbled something to himself beside Alex and she glanced at him, any good mood she'd had fading a little. Her oldest brother had been pissing her off royally the past couple days. His confrontation with Michael in Dad's body had clearly shaken him—that much was clear to her because he'd been a little shorter tempered than usual, meaner than normal—that and he'd been drinking more than usual. And Dean drank a lot period, so... that was just _great_. He'd been full on trashed last night and raging about how the music on the radio these days was shit—he'd broken the motel clock by throwing it at the wall, then slurred about how Sam needed to get a damn haircut, and promptly passed out on the floor. Alex thought it might have been funny another time. But now right now. Dean was constantly losing his temper over little things... he'd shouted at Sam the other day when he'd taken too long to decide what he wanted in the drive-thru, then snapped at Alex when she'd accidentally let some lettuce covered in mayonnaise fall out of her sandwich and onto the backseat of the Impala. She could tell he felt bad about it afterwards, but he never apologized. Just got quiet and stony-faced. Acted like nothing happened, like nothing was wrong.

"Earth to Alex," Sam said, looking at her from across the table. "You okay?"

Refocusing, remembering what she was doing, Alex nodded. "Yeah, just a little tired," she said, which was true enough. The nightmares were still plaguing her and she_ was_ tired. Sam looked at her a minute longer before returning to his examination of a heart. Dean, at the head of the table, was listlessly eyeballing another heart.

"Hey." Dean pushed the container toward Sam, really serious. "Be my Valentine?"

He got an eye roll and a '_really_?' face from Sam, to which Dean gave a cheesy, fake grin.

"Give me _that_," Alex muttered, and pushed the container of entrails at Dean. He took one look at it and cracked another grin. "Spaghetti, anybody?"

"_Dean_." Sam stopped what he was doing and gave their brother an impatient, annoyed expression. Dean just chuckled at his own joke and stirred through the entrails with the silver clamps, not really being helpful. Alex rolled her eyes and picked up the heart from the container she'd just taken from Dean. _Squish_. The smell of human blood—metallic and cloying—was strong. Sam, who had returned to scrutinizing the heart in front of him paused, seeming to notice something.

"Hey—guys—there's like a weird little mark on this one," he said, frowning and pulling the on-table magnifying glass toward himself. "Like, a number three maybe?" He glanced up at his twin. "Anything weird on that one?"

Alex was holding the heart in a gloved hand, squinting at a tiny little white mark she'd just noticed just above where the right ventricle was. _What the—?_

"Yeah, actually—" she replied, intrigued, swiveling the magnifying glass toward herself and peering intently through it. Sure enough, there was a tiny little mark, like a brand there in the bright red tissue. It looked like a fancy letter E or maybe a 3, and it seemed familiar, but she couldn't place it. She held the heart out to Sam, who could compare the marks. "What do you think?"

Sam took it and squinted at it through the magnifying glass, then sat back, surprised. "Yeah." Sam frowned in deep thought, trying to figure it out. "These hearts both have identical marks." He glanced at Dean, then Alex, silent and thinking.

"Okay, _why_?" Dean asked, voicing what they all were wondering. Sam ignored Dean, looked at Alex for a second opinion. "All right—am I crazy, or do these marks look _Enochian_?"

At that question, Alex grabbed the heart back from Sam. She scrutinized the little symbol again, remembering now where she'd seen something similar to it. "Huh. There's a symbol kind of like this one in the angel banishing sigil. Not _identical _but…" she trailed off and looked over the heart at Sam, who looked like he had a similar realization, that he was remembering too. "Yeah," he said intently, sounding like they were onto something. He glanced up at Dean. "I definitely think it's Enochian."

"What like angel scratches?" Dean asked. He'd gotten up and was looking over Sam's shoulder. He got a bratty look from his sister. "No, the _other _Enochian," she said sarcastically.

Dean gave her a 'you suck' face and stood up, fishing for his phone. "See if I share my candy stash with you ever again," he told her threateningly, putting the phone up to his ear.

Sam watched Dean walk off a couple steps, then looked at Alex. He leaned closer to her, wincing. "He thinks there's still some left," he whispered. Alex grimaced dramatically. "We're _so dead_," she whispered back, and he cracked a grin at that point—and then they both dissolved into smothered laughter over the table full of bloody human remains.

"Cas, it's Dean," they heard their brother boom into the phone. "Yeah, room 31-C, basement level… Saint James Medical Center."

"I'm there now," came a familiar deep voice, and at the sound of it, Alex stood up, turned around, almost knocking over her chair. Cas was standing in front of Dean. They were facing each other, phones still to their ears phone still to his ear. "Yeah... I get that," Dean said.

There was a long pause, and Cas narrowed his eyes. "I'm... gonna hang up now," he said.

"Right," Dean said, and in unison, the two of the lowered their phones. Dean turned around, shaking his head, heading back to the examination table.

Cas pocketed his phone and turned his attention to the other Winchesters, approaching behind Dean. He looked fine—walking normally and appearing alert, capable. Alex felt a little better, hung back near the column at the opposite end of the table. "Hello Sam," Cas said first, and then his eyes slid slowly to Alex. "...hello Alex." He paused, taking in her appearance and his head tilted to the side just slightly. "You look nice."

The brothers both looked weirdly at Cas, who hadn't looked away from Alex. She looked a little surprised at his compliment. His arms hung at his sides and he had this open, matter-of-fact expression on his face, and the slightest hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. Dean looked between them and cleared his throat, his features twisted into an unhappy expression. "Hey, Romeo—cut the chit chat and take a look at these hearts."

"Hearts?" Castiel turned his attention to Dean and walked around the edge of the table next to Dean, who was indicating the table full of human remains.

"Yeah, so, we got a couple who ate each other to death," Dean said. "And this is all that's left."

"Ate each other?" Cas repeated as if he hadn't heard right, a deep frown furrowing his brow. Dean shrugged. "Bon appetite."

Sam pushed the container toward Cas. "They both have these marks on their hearts. Looks Enochian to me. What do you think?"

Castiel picked up the heart in his bare hand, looked at the organ carefully. Alex watched him closely, noting when his expression changed from studious to apprehensive. "You're right, Sam. These are angelic marks." He sounded disturbed and glanced vaguely in Alex's direction. "I imagine you'll find similar marks on the other couples' hearts as well."

"So, what are they?" Sam asked. "I mean, what do they mean?"

"It's... a mark of union," Castiel said, and he sounded even more disturbed than before. "This man and woman were intended... to mate." He put the heart down, his hand now bloody, and, preoccupied, he shook it, wiped it against the edge of the container.

"To _date_?" Alex asked, thinking she had misheard.

Cas stopped wiping his hand against the container, looked at her kind of hesitantly. In the dim light of the morgue, his eyes looked so dark and full of something that made her go still, made her feel funny. "No, to mate."

Dean and Sam were exchanging a weirded-out look. "Okay, by _who_?" Dean asked.

Cas was rubbing his fingers together, looking at the blood there distractedly. "Well, your people call them 'Cupid,'" he said. Alex, grabbing a paper towel from a small shelf underneath the table, frowned at him in surprise.

"Cupid? Heart and arrows Cupid?" she held out the paper towel, indicated his hand. He looked at her fully—there was a pause—then he took it and began to wipe his hand. "Thank you," he said. "And no, not really. There are no... arrows." He glanced at her again. "What human myth has mistaken for 'Cupid' is actually a lower order of angel." He glanced at Dean now, who looked more and more doubtful by the second. "Technically it's a cherub, third-class."

"_Cherub_?" Dean repeated dubiously.

"Yeah, they're all over the world," Cas said matter-of-factly. "There are dozens of them." Alex heard what he'd said, but paused, noticing he'd said 'yeah.' That was new, wasn't it? She watched him out of the corner of her eye, realizing that every time she saw him, he surprised her with the things he was picking up, learning, implementing.

While Alex was noticing this, Dean's mind was clearly somewhere else. "_Cupid_? You mean the little flying fat kid in diapers?"

Cas stopped cleaning off his hand, looked at Dean with one of those squinty, I-don't-understand frowns. "They're not incontinent." Dean's face was priceless at Castiel's reply—he apparently had no response for that one. Alex either. She was watching with her arms folded, trying not to look too amused. Cas was looking at her again, frowning deeply and apparently thinking hard. She smashed her lips together, tried to look serious.

"Okay, anyway. So, what you're saying—" Sam started. Cas looked away from Alex and cut him off, suddenly very intense, moving forward, adamant. "What I'm saying is a Cupid has gone rogue and we have to stop him—before he_ kills again_."

The sudden burst of assertiveness startled them all. Sam looked at Cas for a couple beats, looking unsure of how to respond. Then in a little higher pitched voice than normal, he said, "_naturally_," making a weird face and nodding at the table. Cas seemed to see that Sam didn't believe him and he turned to Dean, who was nodding patronizingly, narrowing his eyes and pretending to be sympathetic. "Of _course_ we do."

Cas looked at Dean almost sadly, understanding that Dean was being facetious, and then turned to Alex slowly, reluctantly, as if expecting her to insult him, too. Alex wasn't looking at him—she was too busy giving her brothers her best bitchface. "God, you could you guys not be such _dicks_?"

The three men looked at her, startled. Then Dean found his voice. "Come on, Alex, _Cupid_? Really?" He gave a cynical little laugh and head nod, conceding. "Well. Guess it makes _sense _for the romance novel addict to believe in Cupid."

The room fell completely silent at the very needless and harshly-toned jab. Sam looked at Dean, eyebrows raised in surprise—Cas was looking at Dean too, eyes narrowed. Dean looked between Sam and Cas and put his hands up. "_What_?!"

Pissed off, Alex stepped a little closer to her oldest brother, brushing shoulders with Cas in the process. "Dean, you're being an asshole," she told him point blank. He looked like he'd never heard anything stupider. Alex held his gaze, getting madder when she thought about it. "Has Cas ever steered us wrong before? Why are you being such a _jerk _to him?" Dean made a face, and officially fed up with him, Alex rolled her eyes, huffed in disgust and turned around, walking a couple steps back the way she'd come. Cas watched her for a few beats, then visibly, forcefully refocused, looking between Sam and Dean. "These, uh, these couples, these people—as long as this Cupid is out there—they're in danger. We have to act quickly."

"Right. Of course. So," Dean said, still not convinced. He had his arms crossed. "How do you track down a Cupid, anyway, huh? How do we find this dude?"

Cas was thinking, looking at the floor and frowning, then he looked up again. "I suggest we find a place that is rife with romance."

Clearly not understanding, Dean looked at Cas impassively. "Speak english."

Standing at the back of the room next to another stiff on an examination table—one of the people who'd committed suicide—Alex looked up. "Like somewhere a bunch of couples in love would be, Cas?"

Cas met her questioning gaze steadily. "Yes, exactly."

"That restaurant around the corner," Sam suggested, looking at Dean and then Cas. "It_ is_ Valentine's Day after all. A lot of couples will be out for a date."

Cas seemed to hear Sam a couple seconds after he'd finished speaking—the angel looked away from Alex, a little disconcerted as Sam waited for a reply expectantly. "Uh, yes, excellent idea," Cas said, glancing at Dean and then Alex, who hadn't stopped looking at him once. "I suggest…" he trailed off, eyes locked on Alex.

"Suggest what, Cas?" Dean asked impatiently, glaring at Cas and then Alex. Cas seemed to remember everyone else in the room and looked at Dean again. He seemed a little out-of-sorts. "I, uh, suggest we go there immediately."

"To stop _Cupid_ from going _Rambo_." Dean summarized doubtfully, sounding less than enthused and still looking at Castiel closely, scrutinizing him. Cas seemed confused by the reference, but then seemed to decide that he agreed with whatever Dean was implying. "If that means that we prevent Cupid from further decimating the romantically coupled occupants of this town then… yes."

"Uh _huh_," Dean said and seemed to give up, threw his hands up then let them go where they smacked him on either leg. "Cupid. Okay! What the hell. Sign _me_ up for crazy." He pulled off his flimsy lab apron and started slamming the container tops back onto the boxes of stuff they'd been examining.

Alex exchanged a look with Sam—what the hell was Dean's problem? Sam shrugged lightly, and she thought maybe he was thinking, 'well, that's Dean for you.' Sam stood up, took off his apron and gloves, starting to stack the containers up.

Still beside the suicide victim, Alex took off the uncomfortable plastic gloves, tossing them into the waste bin. Cas went over to her, stopped right in front of her and she paused, hands on the apron string on either side of her neck. Cas said nothing, just stood there as she waited expectantly for him to say something. He didn't say anything, he just looked at her. She grew uncertain. He still he didn't say anything. She heard Dean slamming containers back into the cooler, but couldn't look away from Cas. She was actually getting sort of uncomfortable, fidgety under his gaze. Her tongue darted out nervously to wet her lips. Her stomach felt weird. "So you, uh, you feeling better?" she asked.

There was a long pause. He almost looked like he was feeling... dreamy? It was officially starting to weird Alex out. "Yes," he said. "I am."

"Um, good." She thought she should take off her apron now but she couldn't really seem to move. His eyes were such an intense blue and held her there, and suddenly she was noticing every detail of how cute, no, handsome he was, how captivating and and kissable—whoa. Her inner monologue stopped at that point, asked... _what_? Did you just seriously just_ think _that? She tried to push past the thoughts but her brain could only focus on his eyes, which were looking into hers so completely, then scanning her face, then glancing over her hair. He paused, seeming intrigued. "Usually your hair is down..." he said, eyes now flickering back and forth between both of hers.

She reached up and touched the side of her head, trying to remember what it looked like. He liked her hair? She smiled at him shyly, touching the end of her hair below her shoulder.

"Let's move out, weirdos," Dean said, oblivious to what was going on behind him—he was shrugging on his suit jacket, already headed out the door without a backward glance. Sam was following, his suit jacket already on. He paused by the door.

Alex looked toward the doorway, away from Cas, and suddenly, all the ooey-gooey feelings were gone and she was left wondering what had come over her—maybe she shouldn't have eaten all that stolen candy, huh? Sugar rush. Yeah, that explained it. She chanced a quick peek at Cas, who looked similarly perplexed, staring at the floor with his eyebrows moving together. Weird. Her head felt a bit strange now.

"Today, guys," Dean called—Sam waited at the door for them, but Dean was halfway down the hall already. Alex hurried, yanking off the apron and grabbing her jacket. Sam let go of the door and followed in Dean's footsteps—Alex shrugged her jacket on, pulled her hair out of the collar as she headed for the door—Cas stood there and held it open for her, watching her walk through—and she was very aware that she was staring at him the whole time too, gawking almost. She almost tripped over her own feet.

Getting mortified with her behavior and seeming lack of control, Alex focused on the shiny marble floor under her feet. Beside her, Cas matched her stride as they walked down the dim hallway. She watched his shoes with great interest, noticing how big his feet were compared to hers. And then she suddenly felt him catch her by the arm, stopping her from walking—she looked up, confused, and saw she'd almost walked smack into a column. She looked at Cas, embarrassed—and also noticing how much she liked the way his hand grasped her arm. From up ahead, Sam came back into view, from around a corner he'd already rounded. "Guys," Sam said, impatiently, then paused, giving them a weird look. "What are you doing?"

Cas let go of her arm, and they exchanged a mutually worried look. What was happening? "We're, uh, coming," Alex said, trying to act like everything was peachy, grinning at Sam with her best effort. But from the way her face felt, she realized she probably looked more like a frightened chimpanzee baring its teeth than anything else. Sam gave her an even weirder look and waited for them to get to him, then walked with them the rest of the way—Dean was waiting impatiently at the exit, and then led the way outside. The Impala was parked there along the curb, but Sam pointed East and led the way. "The restaurant is this way," Sam was saying. "Just like maybe two blocks, I think."

Silently, the group of four made their way up the sidewalk and past the medical center, Dean and Sam in front. There were some little shops and stuff lining the street here—a bakery and a little gift shop, and then a florist. There were red roses and hearts all over the storefront, and a huge display that said "Happy Valentine's Day" in swirly script. Cas looked at it curiously as they passed, taking it all in.

On the sidewalk ahead, there was a bouquet of red roses laying discarded on the sidewalk, as if they'd been dropped in a hurry. Cas stopped in his tracks when he reached them. He stared down at them. Alex stopped too, turned slightly to look at Cas, then Sam and Dean did too. Cas then did a very curious thing. He bent down, picked one single red rose up, looked at it for a long moment. And then he looked up from it and to Alex, held it out to her. She looked at the flower and then him, confused. "...what are you doing?" she asked. Her brothers seemed to be wondering the same thing—Sam had a slightly amused, if perplexed look on his face, while Dean looked like he was thinking 'you have got to be shitting me.'

When Alex asked what he was doing, Castiel's expression fell just a little bit and he looked at the rose then back at her. He looked like he thought maybe he'd made a mistake. "Isn't it customary?" he asked.

Alex's eyebrows were raised then going together as her eyes narrowed. She wasn't sure if she were right or not, but as he stood there holding the flower out to her, with his bad posture and slightly confused expression... she couldn't see any other explanation. And she felt the ooey-gooey feelings coming back again as she noticed how far apart they were and how much she disliked that, how some of his hair stuck out on the side of his head and how wonderful that was. "Cas... are you asking me..." she paused, beginning to smile now, the kind of smile you smile when you just can't believe something, "are you asking me to be your _Valentine_?"

As if the thought hadn't occurred to him, he frowned, eyes squinted up, and he stared hard at the flower. "I... don't know." Alex looked at him. Cas looked up at her, blinked a couple times, clearly not sure if he'd done the right thing or not. "Apparently... yes."

Alex felt herself smiling shyly again, her hands were clasped together in front of herself—his frown was fading into a softer expression and she just wanted so badly to throw her arms around his neck where he could twirl her around like in the movies—

"Hey," Dean cut into her inner thoughts gruffly, "I thought there was a killer Cupid on the loose—you kids gonna stand there and flirt all day?"

Alex and Cas looked at Dean, and similarly, the weird thoughts Alex didn't quite recognize in herself ceased. Officially getting a little worried, she glanced at Cas, who looked similarly confused. But he was still holding the flower and looked so damn cute and oh God the little tuft of hair sticking out—

"Come on already," Dean barked over his shoulder, already walking away. Cas looked like he was about to drop the rose, but Alex reached over and took the flower from him. He looked at her, surprised. She grinned at him slyly, sidelong, and tucked the rose into her jacket. He hid a smile and looked down at the ground, as they followed Sam and Dean. Alex noticed that they fell into step together. He had his hands in his pockets.

Sam stopped a minute later in front of a restaurant. "Pagrino's," Sam read the sign out loud, then pointed at the little sidewalk board that was out. "Bring in your Valentine for twenty percent off dinner."

"Excellent," Cas said matter-of-factly, raising his chin slightly, looking pleased. "We can receive a discount."

Dean gave a huge huff of air, disgusted but silent, and went into the restaurant. They followed him. It was dim inside, swanky as a restaurant with booths could get. Pink roses in vases dotted the tables. Tables which were filled with couples. Cheesy hearts hung from the ceiling, tea light candles dotted every surface the restaurant had.

The hostess greeted them with a smile, looked over the four of them. "Table for two couples? Right this way."

Dean looked at Sam, who chuckled—the waitress had apparently assumed Dean and Sam, who were standing in front, were a couple. "After you, _dear_," Sam said, motioning with a hand for his brother to go first. Dean rolled his eyes, started after the hostess.

Cas apparently thought this was a thing, because he parroted Sam with Alex—extended a hand, indicating she go first. "After you, dear."

Alex did just that, doing her best not to bust up laughing. She went ahead and went first, smiling to herself, thinking of the rose inside her jacket, and thinking of Cas, his face, his voice, his hands... what the—? She had a brief moment of wondering, again, what the hell was going on. This was more than a sugar rush. She felt giddy and strange, like she had no reign over her own reactions or thoughts, or like they were muddled, not completely her own. She blinked a couple times, as if trying to clear blurry vision.

Dean was waiting at the half-booth the hostess had taken them to, and was indicating Alex sit next to him. She did, in a daze, and Dean sat down in the chair beside her. Cas was getting into the booth side of the table, sitting opposite of Alex. She avoided looking at him, purposefully, as the weird stuff seemed to get weirder when she looked at him. A couple minutes passed, where Alex stared at her menu, not reading it, peeking at Cas from over the top of it occasionally, feeling her stomach flip flop, then looking away hastily. Each time she peeked up, he was staring right back at her, eyes dark and full.

Dean, watchful, looked like he was suspicious and two seconds away from demanding an explanation. Alex tried harder not to look at anything but her menu. Their waitress arrived after a couple minutes of this awkwardness, smiling widely at Dean. "What can I get you folks?"

Temporarily distracted from watching Cas, Dean handed off his menu. "I'll take a cheeseburger and fries, and a Corona del Sol."

"And for your lady friend?" the waitress asked, smiling at Alex.

"Same thing," Alex replied, not really paying attention. Dean was holding up a correcting finger at the waitress, kind of amused, if a little weirded out. "Uh, not a couple, lady." Alex barely heard him. Cas was looking around the restaurant, head turned to the side—the_ little shaggy curls_ behind his ears—they were distracting. In fact, the more she thought about it, the sight of those little dark swoops behind his completely perfect ear literally seemed to devastate her soul, she felt like if she couldn't reach out and just touch them, she might die. She felt her hand, on her knee, clench. With great effort, she tore her eyes away, freaked out. _Stare at the table. Just don't look at him._

But she couldn't help it. Alex chanced another quick glance at him—and at the very same instance, saw him doing the same. They both looked away quickly. "For you?" the waitress asked Sam.

"Chef salad with vinaigrette and water, please," Mr. Health Conscious replied. Alex smirked to herself, momentarily forgetting her distress. Sam hadn't been so health conscious a few hours ago when he was snatching a Reece's cup from her and shoveling it into his mouth. The waitress, still addressing Sam, turned to look at Cas. "And for your boyfriend?"

Alex had to glance up at that one—Sam looked entirely unamused. Cas, realizing the waitress was talking about him, glanced up. He'd been staring hard at the little pink rose on the table. "Nothing, thank you."

"All right, shouldn't be long guys. I'll be back with drinks in a sec." The waitress left.

Cas cleared his throat, looking around at the Valentine's decor. God, even his frown was perfect, he looked so grumpy and sweet and she just really wanted to—Alex stopped herself mid-thought, forced herself to look down into her lap. _What the hell!_

"Valentine's Day is a curious human tradition," Cas was saying, staring at one of the little hearts hanging above their booth. "Claudius the second cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome to try to recruit more soldiers to join his war, but Saint Valentine continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret." He looked at Sam at this point, then Dean. "When his actions were discovered, he was sentenced to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off."

All three Winchesters looked at Cas—Sam trying to decide whether to be amused or horrified, Dean impressed and definitely amused, Alex kind of warily, breathing a little heavily.

"Wow Cas," Dean said, chuckling. "That's super romantic."

The waitress reappeared with drinks shortly, said she'd be back soon with their order. Alex cracked every single joint in her fingers slowly, feeling more and more anxious.

"I wonder if the couples in here know about the origins of what they're celebrating," Cas said across the table. _Don't look at him. _

"Maybe you should tell them," Dean wisecracked, taking a swig of his beer.

"Do you really think so?" Cas asked intently, and Alex could hear from his voice that his expression was probably cute and concerned and thoughtful and she_ really wanted to look _at him but _no don't do it._ She glanced at Dean who looked like he couldn't believe his luck at Cas's naivety. She literally had to lock her neck in place to keep from looking at Cas. "He's pulling your leg," Sam said.

There was a pause, then a disconcerted, "No he's not. I would feel it."

"He means that Dean is joking," Alex explained, looking at him without even being able to stop herself. Mistake number one, because Cas looked back at her. And their eyes locked. And her heart literally fluttered. She saw him swallow, almost nervously—when had he looked like that before? Oh my God, it had been when he was at the strip club. But this time he didn't look scared as much as he almost looked _predatory._ It was her turn to swallow.

"Here you go, guys," the waitress said, setting down their food and startling Alex out of—whatever was happening in her mind.

"That was fast," Sam commented in surprise.

"Extra staff tonight, it's Valentine's," the waitress explained, the smiled at Sam. "Enjoy, lovebirds!"

"None of us are together," Dean muttered, not very amused about it anymore, but reaching for the ketchup bottle, letting it go. He glanced at Cas, who was snapping out of the stare he'd been sharing with Alex. Dean missed seeing it by a millisecond, literally. "So, what, you just happen to know Cupid likes the cosmos at this place?" Dean asked, focusing on slathering his burger in ketchup.

Cas watched him. "Uh—this place is a nexus of human reproduction. It's exactly the kind of—" he swallowed, glanced at Alex, looked down, "—of garden the Cupid will come to—to pollinate." He had his jaw set firmly, then tugged at his collar a little, like it was too tight. Alex watched him do that, taking in every detail of that _hand _and the way it moved—

Dean sat back, stared at his burger, suddenly looking very uninterested. Across from him, Sam paused, a forkful of salad hovering in the air. "Wait a minute. _You're_ not hungry?"

"No," Dean said, then got defensive. "_What_? I'm not hungry." Alex and Sam both looked at him like he was nuts and he rolled his eyes. "Take a picture," he said, "it'll last longer."

"None of us possess a camera," Cas said, not getting the slang at all. Alex looked down at her lap, hiding a smile, as Sam, ever the helpful one, turned to the angel. "Sure you do Cas, your phone has one," he said.

Cas paused. Alex peeked up from underneath her lashes—he was looking at Sam suspiciously. "You're... teasing me."

Sam set down his fork, good natured smile on his face, held out his hand and made a 'gimme' signal. "No, here, lemme see it."

Cas drew his phone out of his pocket slowly, handed it over to Sam. The phone looked so small in Cas's huge hand, Alex thought morosely.

"Look, you push this button," Sam said, showing Cas, "the camera thing pops up… then push _this_ button…" the phone made a cheesy camera sound. "Voila."

Cas seemed thoroughly impressed, taking the phone back and staring at it in wonder. "I'm—this is very ingenious." He looked up at them, as if he couldn't believe it, coming close to a grin. And that sight was way, way, way too much for Alex. _God in heaven, someone kill me now!_ She screamed internally, sitting there gripping the table with both hands, feeling like she was going to pass out.

Cas, fascinated with the phone, held out the phone, took a photo of the rose in the vase, looked at the screen, smiled to himself. Then looked at Alex, who wasn't ready and probably looked kind of shocked, deer in headlights—but the fake camera sound went off and Cas smiled at the screen where the definitely-horrible picture was now displayed—he then glanced back up at her—she swallowed, wanting to disappear. Cas seemed to feel Dean's pissy stare and held his phone out again, snapped one of him—that would be a good one, the glare clearly saying 'I hate you' was a memory to cherish. Cas then snapped one of Sam, who was mid-bite of salad and saying "hey!" a second after the picture was taken. "I wasn't ready," Sam said through a mouthful of lettuce. Cas, however, looked at his phone, pleased. "Now I have a photo of each of you," he said proudly. _Uh no, _Alex lamented internally, wanting to sob a thousand tears forever and ever. And directly after that thought, she immediately frowned, baffled at herself. A thousand tears forever? _Seriously? _What the actual fuck was happening to her brain?!

"Lemme blow your mind again," Dean said, completely amused at Cas's lack of technical savvy. Alex, perturbed, looked sidelong at Dean, was wishing she could tell her big brother what was happening to her because _she needed help, and NOW,_ but was pretty sure he'd blow a gasket. Unaware of her dilemma, Dean was addressing Cas with exaggerated slowness. "You can_ text_ pictures, too."

Instead of looking thrilled, Cas looked suddenly a little downcast. "I prefer not to text," Cas said, looking down at the phone kind of peevishly now, all the previous affection he'd had for it now sullied. "The buttons are so small and the fingers are so big. Every time I make a mistake I have to write a whole new message."

He got three weird looks. Sam pointed at a key on the phone. "See this? It's a backspace button." He looked at Cas, smiling helplessly. "It erases mistakes."

Cas looked at it, frowning, then sat back in the booth. There was a long pause, and when he spoke, he sounded annoyed. "All this time that was there."

Why did he have to be so damn cute. _So, so, so cute_…? She felt depressed, staring at him sadly. He finally looked away from his phone, put it in his pocket.

Dean was guzzling his beer, looking around the restaurant cursorily while Sam stabbed another forkful of salad up. Alex was left to stare at Cas, feel her heart rate increase, her ability to breathe lessen. He felt her gaze and looked up at her from his lap, expression dark and intense, his chin lowered, his eyes darkening and _devouring_ her almost, and Alex felt like everything else just went away, it was just them and the things she wanted to do with him—and then he seemed to shake himself, get a little freaked out, the dark desire in his eyes lessening in place of confusion and fear. He looked at her burger, almost sounding panicked. "I want that," he said, and reached for it. Spell broken, Alex watched him in confusion. "Uh, sure?" she said, and he took a _huge_ bite, chewed viciously, staring at Alex the whole time.

For a minute, she felt like herself again and watched him, completely mystified. Something was really weird about all this. No, not even weird, _wrong_. She was suddenly watching the way his jaw worked as he chewed, her head listlessly tilting to the side—how did he look so good even while chewing food like a moron? God, he was _so damn_ _hot _that all she wanted to do was throw the table aside and then—she snapped back to attention, catching herself again. Cas had stopped mid-chew, looked to his left. "He's here," Cas said through a mouthful of food, suddenly alert.

They all looked at where he was looking—all they saw were couples. "Where?" Sam asked. "I don't see anything."

"There," Cas indicated a couple that was making out. "You mean the same-side-of-the-booth couple over there?" Dean asked.

Cas set down his burger and announced: "Meet me in the back." Then disappeared.

"Why can't he just walk like a normal person?" Dean complained, throwing down his napkin and getting up. Alex scooted out of the booth in a trancelike state, wondering if she were the only one feeling strange. She felt out in the open and vulnerable, scared of herself.

Dean lead the way back toward the kitchen, ignoring the questioning looks from the staff as they entered.

Alex leaned close to Sam as they followed Dean. "You feeling okay?" she asked him in hushed, worried tones.

"Yeah why?" Sam asked, glancing down at her with a slight frown.

Alex shrugged, worried her lower lip with her teeth. "I dunno, I think something must have been in that candy. I feel kind of… uh, weird." Sam shrugged too, like he had nothing to offer or add. That wasn't comforting.

They found Cas in the dingy back store room, facing the opposite wall, his back to them. His hand was outstretched into thin air, unmoving. "Cas, where is he?" Sam asked striding into the room and looking around in confusion. Just behind him, Dean and Alex came to a stop.

"I have him tethered," Cas said, and then began to speak Enochian in deep, velvet tones. "_Zoda kama mahrana. _Manifest yourself."

There was a long silence in which Sam, Dean, and Alex all looked around the room expectantly. Dean's patience gave out and he walked toward Cas slightly. "So, where is he?" he asked, his tone suggesting that Cas had led them on a wild goose chase.

"Here I am!" Came a new voice, and Alex jumped—beside her, Dean had been grabbed by a giant, naked, fat guy, who was bear-hugging him from behind and giggling madly, shaking Dean like a rag-doll. The shock alone of the sight made Alex freeze for a second.

"Help!" Dean wheezed, and Alex, not knowing what else to do, whipped out her hunting knife—and then Cas was beside her, holding his arm out in front of her. "There's no need for the knife."

"Are you _sure_?" she asked, whipping her head toward him and staring at him, aghast. He looked at her, and again, the second their eyes met, they were both rendered useless, just staring at each other. Alex felt her freaked-out expression fade. He was really the most handsome, gorgeous creature in all of heaven or earth, she thought to herself, then without warning the naked guy barreled into Cas, saying "Hello, _you_!"

Alex jumped back in surprise as Cas was manhandled in an enthusiastic hug. Alex scurried over and behind Dean, her knife still out. "What the hell is happening?!" she demanded of no one in particular.

"_This _is Cupid?" Dean asked in marked disbelief.

"Yes," Cas managed to reply in a strained voice—it was a very tight hug. Cupid looked back their way, set Cas down, setting his sights on Sam. "And look at _you_, huh?" Cupid exclaimed, striding happily toward Sam, who looked terrified. Alex cowered behind Dean, hoping to be overlooked by the very naked and flabby Cupid.

"_No_," Sam said, seeing what was about to happen and, turned fast on his heel to leave, but suddenly Cupid was in front of him and grabbing poor Sam into a very enthusiastic hug. "Yes! Yes, yes, _yes_!" Cupid responded in growing enthusiasm.

Dean turned to Cas, not sure what to do and panicked. "Is this a fight?" he demanded. "Are we in a fight?"

Cas came forward to where Alex and Dean stood, shook his head slightly, eyes fixed on Cupid. "This is... their handshake."

_Handshake?_ Cupid was hugging Sam with way too much affection, nuzzling his head into Sam's neck, eyes closed in what looked like bliss. "Well I don't like it!" Dean announced, and Cas seemed to concede, glancing at Dean for just a second. "No one likes it."

"Why does he have to be naked?" Alex asked despondently, watching Cupid shake Sam around and cuddle him. The sounds of grossed-out protest that Sam was making… were really pitiable. The whole scene was like reality television... horrible to look at, but you just couldn't look away. As if he knew she was thinking about him, Cupid suddenly opened his eyes, looked right at her, grinned. "And _Alex_..." he said, like he was seeing an old friend he'd missed very much. He let go of Sam (who looked traumatized) darted forward toward her, but in between Cas and Dean, Alex held her knife up, shook her head, wide-eyed. "No, okay? No."

Cas had stepped up a little, in front of her, his shoulder and arm blocking half of her body from Cupid's approach. Cupid stopped, sighed, made a sad face, then decided to be coy. "Playing hard to get, huh? I guess I'll let it slide for now. But I'll get a hug from you yet, cutie!"

Alex shrank a little closer to Cas, not taking her eyes off Cupid for a second. She'd never thought a hug could be scary before.

Cupid heaved a deep, happy, self-satisfied sigh. "All right, so—what can I do for you?" he asked happily.

"Why are you doing this?" Castiel asked, no nonsense.

"Doing _what_?" Cupid asked, wrinkling his nose playfully, a wide, open-mouthed smile on his face.

"Your targets—the ones you've marked—they're slaughtering each other."

Cupid's face fell immediately when Cas told him that. "What?" He almost completely shocked, then sad. "They _are_?"

"Listen, birthday suit, we know, okay?" Dean accused harshly. "Don't play dumb—we know you been flittin' around, popping people with your poison arrow, making them _murder_ each other!"

"What we don't know is why." Cas said, much calmer than Dean. In between and behind Dean and Cas, Alex watched Cupid worrying his lip with his finger. He looked positively heartbroken.

"You think that I—" Cupid started, and his chin quivered. "That I would—" he wrung his hands over his belly. "Well, uh... I don't know what to say." His voice broke, he put a hand on his face, and began to cry, walked around Dean—Alex edged herself back and around Cas, who was turning to watch Cupid—who had gone to the back of the room and was giving them a great view of his saggy ass as he bent forward and cried softly.

Sam finally approached Cas, Dean, and Alex, and the four of them watched in disbelief as Cupid's shoulders shook. Alex put away her knife finally. "Great. We made Cupid—giant, crying naked fat man—cry," she said dryly.

Behind her, Sam hesitated. "Should… should somebody maybe... go talk to him?" he asked.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Dean said, and clapped a surprised Alex on the shoulder. "This seems like your area Alex," he said, and nodded toward Cupid. She gave him an 'are you serious' look. "What? Cuz I'm a girl? What if he _hugs_ me?" Dean shrugged, as if to say, 'who cares'. Alex huffed, looked at Cupid's back hesitantly. "Fine. I'll try," she muttered.

Wincing, she approached him slowly, gingerly. Cas trailed her slightly, taking a couple steps forward, watchful.

"Hey, uh—_champ_." Alex said to Cupid. He was still crying and faced away,. "Uh… we didn't mean to upset you… uh…"

Suddenly Cupid turned around, shaking with tears, grabbed her and pulled her close, even as she made a surprised sound. Behind her, all three men had jumped in surprise. "Oh God. Please stop," Alex protested, squeezing her eyes shut and trying not to feel things. He was hugging her _so tightly_.

"Uh, _gross_," Sam muttered, while Dean and Cas were taking action. Dean was pushing, kind of in vain (angel strength and all) on Cupid's shoulder—"Hey, get your junk off of her, man!"

Cas successfully pushed Cupid and Alex apart with his hands, one on either's shoulder, telling him almost threateningly, "that's enough, Cupid."

Cupid looked a little befuddled, but then just looked at them appealingly. "Look guys, I would never—_ever_—kill anyone! I love _life_. I love _love_. Love is more than a word to me, you know. I love_ love_. I love it! And if that's wrong, I don't want to be right!" He looked at Alex, who was once again kind of behind Cas, peering out from behind his shoulder. Cupid seemed to be waiting for her to agree with him. Dean shrugged at her, and Alex looked back at Cupid, not having a clue what he was talking about. "Yeah... uh, love is… so _great_..." she said, and Cupid grinned now, put his hands on his hips—_ughhhh_—Alex looked away. "I knew you'd agree with me, Alex!" Cupid announced jovially.

"Yeah. Uh," Alex looked back at him, kind of squinting, trying not to see all of him. "Just, uh, tell us what you know, okay?"

"I was just on my appointed rounds!" Cupid explained with great emotion and worry. "Whatever my targets do after that that's nothing to do with me. I—I was following my orders." He seemed to get an idea then, looked at Cas, enthusiastic again, optimistic. "Brother! Please brother. Read my mind. Read my mind, you'll see."

Cas pivoted his chin down, stared into Cupid's eyes deeply for a minute, and Dean cocked an eyebrow at Alex, as he were asking 'you seeing this?'—then Cas looked at Dean, resigned. "He's telling the truth."

Relieved, Cupid sighed dramatically, crossed his eyes for a second. "Jiminy _Christmas_. Thank you!"

"Wait, wait, you said—you said you were just following orders?" Dean asked.

"Mm-hmm!" Cupid nodded up and down rapidly.

"_Whose_ orders?" Dean demanded. He was approaching Cupid now, and Cas moved back a bit, Alex stepping back with him in tandem.

"_Whose_?" Cupid laughed merrily at Dean's question, his eyes crinkling up in mirth. "_Heaven_, silly. Heaven."

Clearly getting pissed, Dean spread his hands. "And why does _heaven _care if Harry meets Sally?!"

"Oh, well mostly they don't," Cupid responded, suddenly calm and reasonable in the face of Dean's rage. "You know, certain bloodlines, certain destinies." Manic, he grinned at the Winchester siblings, ending with Alex, pointing a vague finger at her, then waving it toward Sam, too. "Oh, like_ yours_!"

"_What_?" Alex and Sam asked in unison, then exchanged a brief glance. In front and beside of Alex, Cas questioningly tilted his head to the side and she glanced up at him, yet again noticing those damn curls behind his ears—she couldn't look away, lost in thoughts of reaching out and touching him...

"Yeah, the union of John and Mary Winchester," Cupid was saying. "Very big deal upstairs, top priority arrangement. Mmm-hmm."

Alex snapped out of it, frowning to herself.

"Are you saying that you_ fixed up our parents_?" Dean was asking in a deadly tone.

"Well, not me, but…" Cupid grinned again, "Yeah! Well, and it wasn't easy, either. _Ooh_, they couldn't stand each other at first!" Alex looked at Sam, whose expression was unreadable as Cupid continued. "But when we were done with them—perfect couple!" Cupid chuckled deeply and his belly jiggled.

"Perfect?" Dean repeated, incredulous, like he were daring Cupid to be serious.

"Perfect!" Cupid repeated happily.

"They're _dead_!" Dean all but shouted.

Cupid's smile faltered into sympathy. "I'm sorry, but... the orders were very clear. You and your brother and sister needed to be born." The manic grin was back. "Your parents were just… meant to be!" He laughed again, put his hands in the air in front of himself, began to sing and wave his hands back and forth, off in his own little world. "_A match made in heaven—heaven!_"

Dean looked like he was about to lose his mind, stepping closer to Cupid threateningly. "Okay listen douchebag!" he thundered at maximum volume, and Cupid froze in shock. "Stop the damn singing and tell me_ right now_—" Dean jabbed a finger back at Alex, who was watching her brother with uncertainty and then disbelief. "Does she have one of your angel tattoos on her heart?" Dean demanded in a rage, and Cupid, confused and clearly a little afraid, cowered back slightly. "My what?"

Alex, mouth hanging open and thinking she knew what Dean was getting at, glanced up at Cas, who was looking back at her, inscrutable, but... _my God. _She almost thought, from the look on his face, that he was thinking the same thing… did the two of them have the marks? But why would Cas be thinking that too, because he hadn't seen 2014 like she had and—my _God_, his stubble, it was so beautiful and rough looking, she wondered what it would feel like to rub with the palm of her hand—shit, _shit_, she tore her eyes away from him, shaking almost.

Dean was in Cupid's face now. "Your angel mark things have a habit of getting the people I love killed," he roared, "so you better fucking tell me _right now_—" he grabbed Cupid by both shoulders, and Sam protested, "Dean, whoa!" and darted forward, pulled his angry brother back. Cas had an arm out to stop Alex from intervening, but she wasn't moving at all. It was safer here with him.

Cupid shrugged cautiously, his previous fear replaced with a huge, stupid grin. "Like it or not Dean, some things are just meant to be!" he said vaguely, and Dean's expression smoldered in hatred. "It's a whole new world!" Cupid exclaimed. He began to sing again. "_A whole new woooorld, a new fantastic point of vi—_" Dean yanked himself out of Sam's grip, hauled back and punched Cupid… and then promptly whirled, bent over, holding his fist, his face distorted in pain. "Son of a _bitch_," he managed, strained. Sam threw his hands up in exasperation. "_Seriously,_ Dean?"

Dean responded by groaning and looking back at where Cupid had been standing—but he was gone. "Where is he? Where'd he go?!" Dean demanded through the pain he was clearly feeling.

Cas, annoyed, looked at Dean plainly. "I believe you upset him."

"Upset _him_?!" Dean retorted, walking off a few steps, shaking out his fist, and Sam, trying to control his anger, followed, dead serious. "Dean. _Enough_!" He told him intensely. Dean stared back angrily. "_What_!?"

"You just punched a Cupid!" Sam accused, and Dean's immediate, fiery response was, "I punched a _dick_!"

Alex, finally leaving her hiding place, tried a gentler approach. "Calm _down _Dean," she said, to which he just put his hands on his hips and pursed his lips, stared at the ceiling angrily.

Sam looked at his twin at a loss, who shrugged, then back at Dean. Sam had clearly _had it_ and wasn't going to put up with it any longer. He was barely holding in his anger, Alex could tell from the way he moved and talked with his hands. "Um... so are we gonna talk about what's been up with you lately, or not?" Sam demanded of his brother.

Dean stared back for a beat, then his glare returned at full force. "Or _not_." And without anything further, Dean brushed past Sam, didn't look at Alex, just stalked out of the room, leaving his siblings to stare after him in something between disappointment and dejection.

A tense five seconds of silence passed. "I mean, that was out of line, right?" Sam asked Alex in abject frustration, turning to her and looking conflicted.

"Yeah," she agreed, shrugged and shaking her head, feeling disheartened by the entire thing. Dean flying off the handle, freaking out over the heart-mark. God, though, she wondered. _Did_ she, maybe? She glanced at Cas, who was frowning intensely at Sam. Did he? Were they meant to be together, is that why they'd been together in 2014?

"What do you mean, Sam?" Cas asked. "About… what's been… 'up' with Dean lately?"

Sam shrugged, exasperated. "He's been weird lately. I dunno."

"He's been weird lately? Ha, it's just his personality." Alex said cynically. She didn't really mean it, but it sadly felt kind of good to insult him, after the past few days. Sam, on edge, shook his head. "No, it's not. There's something bothering him."

"_Everything _is bothering him," Alex retorted, to which Sam gave her a look like he knew that, but hadn't wanted to say it. He sighed heavily, resigned. "Lemme go find him."

Sam left, heading the direction that Dean had gone. This was ridiculous, Alex thought to herself. Dean punching Cupid, interrogating him about Mom and Dad and herself and then trying to lay him out. Alex turned to Cas, realizing that they were alone—and she suddenly was afraid of what she might do in this crazed mindset of hers—but just then Cupid reappeared in front of them, looking around with a wide-eyed, cartoonish expression. Without even thinking, Alex clutched at Cas's arm so tightly that she slammed flush into his side. She immediately noticed how solid and warm he felt beside her and she never wanted to leave his side or—_dammit!_ Alex gritted her teeth together. She wanted to smash herself in the foot with an anvil—anything to stop thinking these crazy, distracting thoughts!

"Is the mean man gone?" Cupid asked anxiously. _Who, Dean?_

"Yes," Cas said, understanding. "The mean man is gone."

"He _hurt _me," Cupid said sadly. Then shrugged, his expression changing quickly to upbeat once again. "He _tried_ to hurt me." He waved his hand in dismissal. "But it's okay. I'm fine!" he laughed openly, and Cas looked down at Alex then. She knew she shouldn't, but she looked back, and there they froze for a second, then Cas blinked hard, looked away, rattled, looked at Cupid in confusion. "Is there… uh, is there a reason you've returned?" he asked Cupid.

Cupid just folded his arms across his hairy chest, gave a long and happy gusty sigh and smiled at them. "Oh. I just wanted to admire you a little longer." He began humming _Whole New World_ again, and Alex stared at him, utterly lost. Cupid clapped his hands together and rubbed them gleefully. "Yes sir, this is a good one! Possibly the best one ever!" he exclaimed. And then disappeared as suddenly as he'd appeared.

Alex stared blankly at the spot where he'd been. "What…?" she asked, and looked at Cas for an explanation. Then noticed that his jacket had gotten a little messed up—probably when Cupid picked him up to hug him. "Your coat's a little crooked," she said, and grasped the lapels, straightened the coat. And then didn't let go. She could feel his eyes boring down onto her and she was suddenly very, very aware of how close he was and how badly she wanted to yank him to her and kiss him until there was no tomorrow—she looked up into his eyes and saw his expression was dark and full of intent. His hands came up to grasp her around the wrists, his expression wobbled, brief confusion flashing across his eyes. Then it was gone and he was looking at her like he _wanted _her, his hands slid down from her wrists, skimming the length of her forearm and then his hands came to rest on either side of her hips—his face was slowly tilting down toward her—

"Uhh, guys?"

They froze. Sam was at the door, looking really, really confused. Cas and Alex looked at him blankly, still completely frozen. "Uh, pretty sure Dean ditched us." Sam squinted at them, came forward a couple steps. Cas and Alex separated at this point, looking at their feet and the ground in general. Alex hugged herself, Cas's arms hung useless at his sides. "Is... something going on?" Sam asked, confused and suspicious and also trying to hold back a smile too it looked like.

"Nope," Alex said, forcing herself to look up at him. She had a wan smile plastered across her face and Sam didn't look like he believed her—at all—but he nodded (eyes still narrowed in suspicion) and then looked at Cas, who was looking back at Sam with a priceless expression: wide, innocent, eyes, his mouth in a line, forehead all wrinkled up from how high his eyebrows were raised.

Sam cleared his throat, gave them both one more 'yeah right' glance and then dropped it, mercifully. He cleared his throat. "Listen, Cas—you mind zapping us over the the Palm Motel? Room 26?"

No sooner than had he finished asking the question, they were standing in the motel room. Sam looked impressed or startled. "...I guess that's a yes." He thought of something, frowned. "Should have gotten my salad to go," he said sadly. Cas disappeared, and the twins looked at the spot where he'd been standing, mystified. Sam took off his suit jacket, sighed tiredly, then looked at Alex the way he did when he knew something was up. "Okay, so what was—" he started, but then Cas suddenly reappeared with two familiar plates—Sam's half eaten salad, and Alex's burger (one a huge Cas-sized bite missing).

"Your salad, to go," Cas announced. Sam again looked impressed, then took the plate, shrugging, nodding, in a little bit of a better mood. "Uh, thanks, Cas."

Cas held out the remaining plate toward Alex who was avoiding his gaze. She felt like herself again, and deeply disturbed. "Not too hungry," she said, sat on the edge of one of the beds, troubled. Cas looked personally affronted that she didn't want the burger. "But you didn't eat anything," he stated. He set the plate down, looked at her piercingly. She stared at his feet. "What can I get you? What would you like?" he asked. She glanced up at him. He was being so weird. Well, he was always weird, but this was weirder than usual. What would she like?

_You_, she almost said, and went wide-eyed, staring down at her lap. _Shit,_ get a grip Alex! "I'd like… a um, a, uh, cupcakes," she said down into her lap, saying the _second_ thing that came to mind. Cas was suddenly gone again. "No, I wasn't serious," Alex protested into thin air, then let out an exasperated breath.

"He's a spastic little guy, huh?" Sam commented, eyeing Alex closely. She said nothing, just chewed the inside of her mouth, thinking hard, ready to change the subject. "Okay, Sam, if Cupid's not the culprit for those weird murders... something else is, right?" she asked. He clearly saw what she was trying to do and looked at her like 'really?' but she just continued. "The question is, what? I've never heard of a bump in the night that uses angel marks to target victims. I don't remember anything like this case happening ever before."

"Me either," Sam replied automatically, set his plate aside. "So about earlier—" he tried again, but was interrupted by Cas appearing again. He was holding a box marked 'Magnolia Bakery—best cupcakes in the US.'

"I got cupcakes," he said simply, looked at the box. "The best cupcakes in the US." Alex and Sam both looked at him speechlessly. Alex stood up slowly, taking in the sight of him standing there in front of her, so close and within reach. He looked so damn ridiculous and perfect there in that ill-fitting trench coat holding that box of sweets and she was tempted to grab him, whirl him around, slam him down on the bed, have her way with—

The door to the motel room opened and Alex swallowed, blinked. She was literally starting to sweat. This was not good. She almost felt like she might act on these urges, they got more intense every time, more consuming. More insatiable. It was Dean coming in, and he started when he saw them all. He must have forgotten that the angel could zap them anywhere faster than Dean could drive. His expression went from troubled to guarded in one second flat.

"Thanks for the_ ride_, Dean," Sam said to him.

Dean tossed his suit jacket onto a coat hangar on the wall. "Shut up." He stopped, sights set on Cas. He took one look at the cupcake box and Dean pointed at him roughly, looking murderous. "You. Me. Outside—_now_."

Cas complied, still holding the box, and Dean held up a hand, looked at him hard. "Leave the damn cupcakes, Cas!"

The angel set down the box on the kitchenette counter, then followed Dean back out the door. Alex and Sam, who had watched the exchange in shocked silence stared, then Alex stood up, not sure if she should let this happen—Cas glanced back at her uncertainly, and Dean, already looking at Alex, gave her one of the most commanding glares he ever had. "Stay here, Alexandra," he growled, "don't even _think _about following us." Alex felt her mouth drop open, shocked into stillness.

"_Alexandra_?" she repeated in abject disbelief as the door slammed behind the two men. He hadn't called her that since… since Dad died and he'd flown into a fit of rage and trashed the Impala. Sam looked similarly shocked. The twins looked at each other. _What was happening? _Alex got up and went into the bathroom, avoiding Sam's questioning gaze and reality altogether. _What was happening to her?_ She looked in the mirror, seeing a scared-shitless face staring back.

* * *

Outside the motel room, Cas and Dean stood in the flickering light of the dying overhead light. It was dark out now.

"All right look Cas," Dean started bluntly, not bothering to be polite or watch his tone. "I've tried to bite my tongue but I can't anymore—all that googley eyed crap in the restaurant and will you be my valentine shit—what the hell was that, huh?"

Cas looked unsure, speechless even, and Dean stepped a little closer, lowered his voice. "I don't know what your weird deal is with my sister, Cas, but it needs to stop, and pronto, you hear me!?" Dean was getting out of breath, he was so livid. He walked a couple steps off from Cas, trying to calm down. "Listen," he ranted, whirling around and jabbed his pointer finger down for emphasis, "I may not have much in this hell-hole world but I got Sam and I got Alex and I'll be _damned_ if I let either of them sign their own death warrant!"

"Dean, I—" Cas tried, but Dean cut him off, coming back toward him angrily, his index finger waving angrily. "I saw the _future_, Cas, the future where Alex is _dead_ and Sam is Satan's muppet, so don't think you can just _explain away _this shit!"

Cas tried to speak again, but Dean refused to give way. However, he was starting to sound less angry, more desperate. "Cas, man, Alex's death warrant is _you_! So you tell me what I'm supposed to do when I see the way she looks at you—when you do nothing but _stare_ at her all day long!"

"Enough, Dean," Cas said grimly, looking down to his right.

"Enough?" Dean repeated incredulously.

"Yes, _enough_," Cas said, and looked at the other man squarely in the eye. "You're... mistaken." He let those words hang for a beat, then took a couple steps away from the motel, down off the sidewalk and into the parking lot. He stared up at the sky solemnly. "Dean I've... I've seen this future to which you're referencing." He looked away from the sky, eyes going down and to the side, in Dean's direction. "I've seen everything."

Behind him, Dean was momentarily shocked into silence. "Everything?"

"Yes," Cas confirmed heavily. His eyes flickered over the sky above him once again as he looked up. "I know that in it, Alex dies because of me. And Dean, I promise you—I will not allow it to happen. _Any _of it." He turned back around to face Dean, who was stepping off the sidewalk, joining Cas on the pavement, his expression terse.

"I apologize Dean," Cas said wearily. "I don't mean it—the things you accuse me of—the way you perceive my relationship to her. I'm her protector. There is a special, profound bond between angels and the ones they protect." He paused, then looked at Dean openly. "I feel the same bond for you."

Dean made a face, recoiled just slightly, looked Cas up and down. Unexpectedly, a little humor returned to his voice and demeanor. "Well I don't know how I feel about that, Cas."

"If to a lesser degree," Cas clarified, realizing Dean's implication. "After all, I was never assigned as your guardian. Simply your rescuer."

Dean shook himself, because Cas sounded convincing and sad and worried and Dean didn't want to be suckered. He remembered 2014 too clearly. "Yeah that's all great Cas," he said, voice returning to a gruff, assertive tone, "but explain to me how you and Alex end up together—_together_—" he emphasized meaningfully, "four years into the future from now."

Cas's stoic expression flickered. "I'm—I'm unsure." He had looked away from Dean. "It doesn't happen unless I'm human." He drew in a breath and refocused, looked at Dean again. "Dean, I'm an angel. She's a human. We're not compatible. Please, understand this." Cas's expression was inscrutable. "Think about it, Dean. I don't feel things the way you feel them. I'm not human. I'm incapable of… that."

"Of _what_?" Dean asked, not following.

Cas looked irritated that he had to spell it out. "Human romance. Love." His eyes faltered away. He sounded bleak. "Whatever you want to call it."

"But when you lose your angel juice it's a different story," Dean stated darkly, and Cas said nothing, just looked down.

"This is why it's more important than ever, Dean, that we find a way to stop Lucifer. To prevent that future from happening." He shook his head slowly, deliberately, and to Dean, the angel looked his age momentarily—thousands of years old and so weary. "I don't want Sam to be taken by Lucifer," he said. Paused, staring unblinkingly at the ground. "I don't want Alex to die." His voice had softened, but then he set his jaw firmly, looked at Dean unflinchingly, his voice lowering again. "I'll do whatever it takes to prevent these things."

There was a fierce and rigid resolve in Cas's voice and demeanor and Dean let out a deep, disturbed breath, trying to figure out how to react. This situation, his assumptions, Alex and this angel—every time Dean thought maybe he was going nuts and making stuff up, something else happened that supported that creeping fear that Castiel and Alex were hurtling toward each other. Dean was distracted as hell in his own thoughts and world right now, but he had caught some weird moments between Cas and Alex today, and he _wanted_ to believe Cas, that it was just some kind of weirdo guardian angel protector crap—Cas was an awkward dude to begin with but—the way this guy looked at his sister. He just wasn't sure. Maybe it was that deep down, he didn't like anyone but himself and Sammy to be protective of her. He kind of felt like no one else had the _right_. Not after all Dean had been through to keep her safe throughout the years. Alex was his responsibility, and more than that, one of the only things left Dean loved in the world. Cas just wanted to swoop in and take her from him, and he didn't like that.

He eyed Cas carefully. Maybe it wasn't romantic for Cas, but Alex—that was a different story. Dean knew it on instinct that she was majorly into Cas, had some kind of fantasy crush on him and Cas didn't make it any harder for her with his weird gazes and comments and—dammit, this wasn't good. This whole thing just bothered him at his deepest levels. However, for the moment, he decided, grudgingly, to play peace keeper. "Yeah, good," he said absently. "Fine. We'll touch base with you tomorrow."

Cas looked confused, took a stuttering step forward. "I should stay and watch over you."

_Wow, he thought he was being subtle, didn't he?_

"Over _me_, Cas?" Dean asked conspiratorially. He felt a surge of protectiveness, possessiveness, righteous anger. "_I'm_ her protector, Cas. _Me_." He stepped back, not dropping Cas's gaze. "Always have been. Always will," he said solemnly, almost feeling like he was laying claim to Alex in that moment. And she wasn't a piece of property like that, but Dean knew the only person in the world he trusted to keep her safe was himself. No one else. Cas looked awash in confusion now, of course. He always looked confused, the damn super-powered moron.

"Conversation's over, Cas." Dean regarded Cas a second longer, sarcastic now, defensive. "I'll let you know when you're needed."

And he turned, left Cas standing there. When Dean got to the door and glanced back, Castiel was gone.

* * *

Dean reentered the motel room to find Sam standing by the shut bathroom door, arms folded—he looked very unhappy.

"Oh, so you ran him off, too?" Sam asked, noticing Cas's absence. Dean just gave him an impatient look, sidestepped. "What are you_ talking _about?"

Equally impatient, Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, then let it go, expelling a heavy breath, gestured to the closed bathroom door. "You upset her."

Dean made a face. "_I_ upset _her_? Was I the only one that saw the weird ass shit between them today?"

Oh _definitely_ not—but Dean did _not_ need to know what Sam had seen. Sam would figure that whole Cas and Alex looking like they were about to kiss thing _later._ Right now, he needed to get Dean to explain himself, to calm down. "Dean—" Sam started, then paused, restarted. "Okay, look, that's beside the point. You gotta level with me, man. What is _with you_ lately?"

Dean shot his brother a dangerous glare. "I told you before—screw off."

Sam got a little madder but stood his ground, approached Dean, controlling himself. He wasn't going to back down on this one, wasn't going to let his older brother push him around and set him off. "No, Dean, I want to_ talk _about this."

Dean, disgusted and cagey yanked his jacket down from where he'd hung it just a couple minutes ago. "Forget this, I'm going out."

"You just got _back_!" Sam protested. He didn't get a response—Dean slammed the door in Sam's face.

Sam spread his arms out in helpless frustration, ran a hand through his hair, circled back toward the shut bathroom door. _Great, just great._ Both of his siblings were refusing to talk to him and had him going crazy.

First there was Dean, acting like nothing was wrong when clearly something_ really was_, and now Alex… something was wrong with her, too, and maybe had been for awhile, now that Sam considered. Maybe since Dean had died, since Sam had left her alone with Bobby. He felt a twinge of guilt. If Alex falling apart was in any way his fault… after all the crap he'd put her through… Sam leaned against the wall, hung his head, scrubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. She didn't deserve any of this—the constant hardship she was dragged through, the uncertainty of what tomorrow would bring. The Michael Lucifer thing hanging over her head. She must be freaked, he realized. At the thought of being left alone in the world if the angels got their way with himself and Dean.

Sam had gone out into the world and had friends and acquaintances, but Dean and Alex—all they'd ever had was each other. If he and Dean died or disappeared, who would she have? It was a sad jumbled little world they lived in. Not many people would understand what the Winchesters went through, the things they fought, the dark things they carried.

Out of the blue, Sam found himself remembering something from childhood—the series of crayon drawings Alex had made of these animal characters from her imagination. There had been three animals, and each of them represented one of the siblings—there was Bear, who was Sam, Lion, who was Dean, and Mouse, who was Alex. Bear and Lion had been huge animals with fierce claws and superhero capes. Alex had drawn Mouse, tiny, cute, furry little Mouse with a machine gun and or a machete in the illustrations. Sam's heart swelled unexpectedly at the memory. _Only Alex_. For all the crap in their childhood, there were some good memories, too, mostly to do with her and Dean. And dammit, he loved them both a lot. Maybe he wasn't_ good _at it, but he loved them as best he could.

He looked toward the bathroom, into the wall at his side. She was in there, probably sitting on the floor and staring into space. He knew she wanted to be left alone, but he really felt like she needed someone to talk to. Yeah, he was pretty frigging curious about what he'd seen back at the restaurant—that embrace between Cas and his sister—but he could wait on finding that out, he just wanted to make sure she was okay.

It _was_ weird though, catching them like that, and had definitely surprised him. Maybe Dean, who Sam had thought was being a little nutso before—maybe Dean was right about them. He pictured them together, as a couple, thought about it hard. And maybe he was a sucker or something, but the thought of an angel and a human finding happiness together didn't seem as bad as Dean seemed to think.

He stopped, deciding that he shouldn't be thinking about this too hard—he might have misinterpreted what he'd seen, after all. All he knew for sure was that his sister was upset and he didn't want her to be. Sam raised his hand, knocked lightly on the door. "Hey, Mouse?" he paused, listening. He hadn't called her that in forever… definitely not for a couple years at least. Would she even remember?

"Yeah?" she asked after a minute. He couldn't tell, from her voice, what she was thinking. He paused, then settled on, "I'll be out here if you need me."

There was a long pause. Then a quiet reply that made him smile softly. "Okay, Bear." She _did_ remember.

* * *

**The Next Day **

Castiel sat in Big Frank's Burger Hut, eating yet another burger. It was around dinner time and he had been here all day, alone in a booth and surrounded by a growing amount of shiny silver wrappers. He dimly reflected on how strange this was. He had eaten perhaps forty of them in the past few hours, and had no plans of stopping. They were the only thing that seemed to help. He swallowed slowly. It was interesting. The combination of ingredients seemed to meld perfectly—warm melty cheese, cool strips of shredded lettuce, the savory meat patty, the tang of some kind of sauce, the acid of some onion, the dryness and softness of the bun. The slight crunch of the sesame seeds on top. It was quite enjoyable. He found that he liked how the differing textures and tastes came together and ceased to be separate as he chewed each bite, the teeth rendering the solid food into a different substance altogether as he chewed.

Yesterday, at the restaurant with the Winchesters, he'd begun to feel hungry, filled with an overwhelming desire to consume. And the burger, sitting in front of Alex, had been a good distraction from that desire. Out of something he thought was desperation, he had grabbed that burger—needing to do something physically and not sure what, and then had realized the burger tasted good, made his other thoughts simmer instead of rage at the forefront of his mind.

His other thoughts. _Her. _

He took another bite, trying to concentrate on the taste of beef instead of anything to do with _her_. The constant flow of burgers seemed to be the only thing that worked, distracting him from the overwhelming thoughts of Alex—being apart seemed to help, too, which troubled him immensely. Last night, he'd made himself vanish, but had stayed close to Alex to watch over her until he realized he couldn't. That the foreign desire grew worse the longer he watched over her (she'd just been sitting on the floor in the dingy bathroom, stone faced), the more anxious he'd grown until he'd known _he had to leave her presence. _

There was some great danger over this town, he could feel it, sense it—and the great irony was that he needed to stay away from Alex, leaving her defenseless all because his vessel and his mind were working against him somehow. It must have something to do with what was happening here because... he had almost kissed her yesterday, not a thought of '_no_' or '_don't'_ entering his mind until Sam had appeared. This was troubling, perplexing, and he was uncertain. Greatly uncertain.

Cas paused, a burger in front of his mouth, but he stared over the top of it unseeingly, picturing Alex, wondering where she was and what she looked like, if she was thinking about him too... then he caught himself, and took another huge bite of burger, trying to focus on it instead. There was a heightened sense of alarm in the back of his mind as he wondered how much longer he could stay away from her and sit here and eat burgers, because he needed to be near her and protect her—what had she been doing all day, was she safe? Was Dean protecting her? Was Sam?

He thought of what Dean had told him last night. '_I'm_ her protector, Cas. _Me_.' And he felt a surge of helplessness. Right now, this was true. And Cas didn't want it to be. He was supposed to be her protector eternal. He wondered about Dean's frantic question to Cupid, about if Alex had the mark on her heart, the symbol of union. Everything Cas had told Dean last night about his devotion to protecting Alex, his incompatibility—he wanted to believe it himself. Only, he knew he was walking a fine line between truth and lies.

Cas glanced over, hearing someone approaching—he saw a familiar pair of black boots walking up to his table. And… bare legs? He looked up, following the path of bare legs to knees, then he saw the pattern of flowers—then the familiar tousled brown hair and the pretty face and bright, shy indescribable eyes. "Hi Cas!" she said, grinning widely at him, looking entirely delighted to see him. "I was across the street shopping and I saw you!" She sounded very upbeat, more than usual. Not completely herself.

"Alex," he said, standing up quickly. Several wrappers that had been on him fluttered to the floor like leaves off a tree. He'd noticed immediately what she was wearing, because it was different than anything he'd ever seen her in before. She was wearing her cargo jacket over a dress—floral print with a high waist and just-above-the-knee length… Cas was staring at where her legs ended and the dress began. He was suddenly intensely worried and couldn't look at her, but he also _needed_ to look at her, take in every detail, consume the sight of her if that's all he could have—the desire to do so was overwhelming, but he clenched his fists at his sides, stared at a linoleum tile on the ground, fighting hard against his rambling longings. "I need more burgers," he mumbled, sliding back into the booth, grabbing the last one on the tray.

She seemed to notice the wrappers for the first time. "Did you... eat _all_ these?" she asked, looking at the wrappers scattered around his booth with a strange expression. She slid into the booth across from him and he almost smashed the burger completely in his hands. He glanced at her—accidentally—and couldn't tear his eyes away. "Since when did you eat, Cas? And so... damn... much?" she sounded like herself again, was still looking at the wrappers, maybe trying to count them. He noticed the freckles he loved scattered across her face, the wild hair, the way her eyes darted across the wrappers. He was entranced, he could look at her for all eternity times a thousand.

She looked up at him, waiting for an answer. He returned the gaze, intensely desiring to be closer to her. She seemed to be drawn into his unblinking gaze, then she visibly made herself look away, turning her head down and to the side, fast. "Something weird is happening," she said, sounding a little scared, looking disconcerted. "When I look at you, I get... I get stuck."

Similarly, Cas had looked away, his heart racing. She was right. What was happening to him—and why couldn't he control himself? It seemed to be easier when they didn't look each other in the eye—but why? It didn't matter. "We... we just shouldn't look at each other," Cas said, uneasy. He stared at the burger in his hands. In fact maybe he should leave right now, because he just wanted to toss the table aside and—

"Yeah, yeah, I think you're right," she said, but sounded disturbed. She got quiet for a minute. When she spoke again, she sounded worried. "How long do we have to… not look at each other? Is this permanent?"

Cas set his burger down, hands both resting loosely on the tabletop. He stared at the tray. "I don't know."

There were a few seconds of silence.

And then she slid her right hand across the table, towards his left hand. She stopped just short of touching him, and he risked a glance up at her—she looked deep in concentration, looking at their hands about to touch, like she was trying to hold herself back. He was responding in kind to the gesture before he could even have a second thought—he slid his hand out further, grasped hers gently. Her eyes flicked up to his, scared, unsure. "Cas…" she said, a question, a plea, a statement all at once. He couldn't look away from those eyes—his grip tightened on her hand—she drew him like magnet to magnet, and he was helpless, never wanting to be parted from her side, wanting to lessen the space between them, wanting to—

He flinched, shaking himself out of the trance, pulling his hand back, breathing hard in surprise. Alex looked similarly shaken, put her elbow on the table, her head down and a hand over her eyes, so all she could see was the tabletop below her. She let out a frustrated sigh and cleared her throat. "So the burgers, Cas? Why."

Cas looked down at the sea of silver wrappers on the table. "Yes, it's strange. I—it's the vessel. It seems to be starving." He paused. "Jimmy—he—likes these. Liked these."

"Jimmy?" she asked. She sounded sad.

He felt the way she sounded as he thought of the man whose body he'd taken. "Since Raphael… killed me… and I was brought back. I've heard nothing from Jimmy. I thought —I thought maybe he was gone."

"But I thought you said…" she paused, and it took all of Cas's willpower not to look at her, to see what beautiful expression might be on her face, what subtle movements her eyebrows and mouth might be making. "I thought you said that everything he was still remained, just was like, overshadowed by you?"

"Yes, I remember telling you that," Cas said, distracted by his thoughts of her and of Jimmy and of what he thought of it all. He picked at a foil wrapper, trying to unwrinkle some of the wrinkles in the metallic material. "I'm not sure. I used to hear him sometimes." He let out a deep breath, reflecting. "I don't anymore."

She was quiet a long moment. "You sound sad."

Cas looked up at her at that point, unsure how those words from her mouth could affect him so deeply, make him _feel_—there was a very loud gurgling sound nearby and they both looked over at the soda fountain—where a slightly overweight woman was drinking soda straight out of the fountain, clawing at the nozzle with her hands wildly. She looked like she was drowning herself in it almost, it was puddling around her feet and she was choking on it as she shoved her face further into the stream of fizzy liquid. Alex jumped up and darted over, pulled the woman away by the shoulders, saying "Hey! _Hey_! Stop!"

The woman struggled for the soda fountain, trying to get back to it, yanking her arms forward and saying, "No! I need it,_ I need it_!"

She broke Alex's grip and rushed back to what she'd been doing. Cas was right behind Alex—he'd followed her immediately, protectively, but he didn't know what to do—Alex apparently did though because she grabbed the woman again, hard, whirled her around with a grunt and punched her in the face, hard—the woman went cross-eyed and fell over sideways, unconscious. Alex winced, shaking her fist out. "Son of a _bitch_," she muttered.

Concerned, Cas turned her toward him even as he stepped around to face her, took her hand in both of his. "Why did you do that?" he asked, looking at her hand, then at the woman on the floor, who was laying face-up in a puddle of soda.

Alex shrugged, kind of distracted. "Seemed like a good idea at the time..."

In his hands, her hand suddenly curled its fingers around the outer edge of his palm. They looked into each other's eyes at the exact same moment and Cas wanted so badly to kiss her, to shove her into the nearest wall and break her, have her, possess every part of her—

Alex yanked her hand back, regaining clarity, and when she did that, his returned momentarily, too, and he took a step back, horrified at these thoughts of breaking her, fearing that he was losing his mind. Alex looked around the restaurant, upset. "Cas, look around—something is happening to the people in this town—to us."

She looked down at her shoes, avoiding looking at him. "I saw some people in the dress shop trying to kill each other over the bargain rack and there was this one guy I saw who was jamming like handfuls of cigarettes into his mouth on the side of the street. Now this—"

She was cut off by the sound of loud shouting to their left. The cashier was screaming into her phone behind the counter, crying, bawling really. "_Why,_ Jared?! You _promised _me! You _don't love me_! You promised you'd love me _forever_! Am I really that worthless?!" The girl began banging her head into the corner of the wall repeatedly, violently, hard enough that blood began to come out of her forehead where a wound rapidly was being made—and then Cas was suddenly standing behind the girl—he'd moved through space and wind swept through the restaurant—he touched her shoulder and she went slack, fainting. He looked questioningly at Alex, who had gone still, in shock at it all.

"Good, Cas, good," she said absently, and looked around the restaurant, highly anxious. "What is going _on _in this_ town_?"

"We should leave," Cas said, suddenly right beside her again. She jumped slightly. "This place seems unsafe."

"Holy crap!" Alex exclaimed, laying eyes on a couple two booths away—they'd thrown their food onto the floor and were climbing all over each other and were literally ripping off each other's clothes.

"We gotta _go_," Alex said—Cas had her by the sleeve of the jacket and was already half-pulling, half-guiding her out of the restaurant. Out on the street, it was chilly and overcast. "Cas, what is _happening_?" Alex asked. Cas had his hand on her back lightly, protectively as they walked. He was looking around constantly, searching for any sign of danger.

"Could a witch be behind all this craziness?" Alex asked, glancing up at him. She slowed down, and he did too. "No, this is too much for a witch—perhaps it's—" he trailed off, looking at her. They had stopped walking and they were beside a long, blank brick wall. He looked at her up and down, forgetting what he'd been saying or doing. "You should wear dresses more often," he said, and leaned toward her, his hands grabbing her waist, and—

Her phone rang, and startled, they stopped. Cas looked at what he was doing and pulled away, flustered. He hadn't even thought, he'd just _acted_. He wasn't sure if he should stay with her or leave, because he didn't seem to have control anymore.

Unnerved, Alex pulled the phone out of her jacket pocket and answered, walked a couple steps off. Her cheeks were red. "Sam, hey." She paused. "What? A demon? Why?" Cas watched her closely, not letting her get even two steps away. He needed to be near her. "Yeah, okay." She put her phone back.

"Sam said he ran into some demon guy with a briefcase and he thinks it has something to do with what's happening here in town."

Cas reached for her to transport them. "We should go there immediately."

"Don't touch me!" she exclaimed, shying away from his hand, not looking at him. "It's... just, uh, I can't, just, um, just don't." She sounded shaky. "Let's just walk. I wanna walk, okay?"

She turned around and began walking again. And that's when Cas saw the two demons in male vessels round a corner up ahead—he saw their true, abominable faces. His stomach seemed to rocket upwards in alarm, and he was, without hesitation, drawing his angel blade and shooting forward, putting himself between Alex and the demons, shouting at her "stay back!" even as he viciously stabbed the first one in the chest. The demon let loose a blood curdling scream as his skeleton flickered and he died.

The other demon had turned and was running away—indicating they had not expected this fight, so what were they doing here—Cas didn't have time to consider this, he was yanking his blade back out of the first demon's chest and he flipped the blade smoothly in his hand so that he gripped the sharp end—he drew back and sent it torpedoing through the air where it plunged into the second demon, who screamed and fell forward, dead.

Instantly, Cas looked back at Alex, who was coming to him, grabbing his arm. "Are you all right?" she asked, concerned. He looked at her, vaguely out of breath—he tore his gaze away before the dangerous thoughts could begin. "Demons," he said, and looked around, wary, vigilant.

"Why—?" Alex asked.

"I don't know," he said. His voice deepened. "But we're not walking any more."

He grabbed her, and they disappeared off the street.

* * *

**About an Hour Later**

"_This town is not suffering from some love-gone-wrong effect," _he'd explained about an hour ago. _"It's suffering from hunger. Starvation, to be exact—specifically… famine."_

Cas's words rang in her mind, inspired the following mantra:_ It's not you, it's Famine. It's not you, it's Famine. The freaking horsemen of the Apocalypse Famine._ In the backseat of the Impala, Alex was stone-faced, clenching her hands into fists repeatedly in an attempt to do something, anything, to distract herself. It was getting worse with every passing moment, she felt _crazy_.

Yesterday had been bad enough, this afternoon (the impulse shopping? Twirling in front of the mirror and wondering what Cas would think of her dress?!) had been worse, now _this_. She literally could barely think.

After getting attacked by the two demons, Cas had spirited them back to the motel room where Sam had just gotten back to with a mysterious briefcase. Dean had been waiting there for them, and they opened the briefcase—which had contained a human soul. Cas had then seemed to have an 'ah-ha' moment, saying that the town was under Famine's curse, that Famine wanted the souls of these people and was killing them using gluttony, desire, starvation._ It's not you, it's Famine. _

In the backseat of the Impala, Alex was growing beyond restless. It had been bad enough when Cas had whisked her back to the motel. Like a caged animal, she'd paced the back of the motel room, barely able to hear what Sam, Dean, and Cas were discussing. Her thoughts were screaming at her, begging her to just let her look at Cas, just_ look _at him, but when she did, she lost any semblance of brainpower in favor of increasingly frenzied, sexual thoughts. She'd catch herself and for a minute she'd be horrified at how out-of-control she felt, how possessed by the crazy hunger for the angel in the trench coat.

She felt like she wasn't sure what was going on anymore, she was so, so, so preoccupied with Castiel and every passing minute she felt less and less capable of hanging onto her sanity. She was barely able to concentrate.

The Impala was pulling to a stop in front of a Biggerson's restaurant. "Demons," Dean said up front, looking at the men in suits out in front of the building. "Just like we thought." He paused, irritated. "Cas, you gonna stop stuffing your face with burgers for a minute? You remember the plan?"

Cas stopped, turned to Dean. He'd been eating burgers constantly the past hour, more and more frustratedly... if it were possible to eat a food out of frustration. Alex tried to remember the plan, tried to think it through, anything but thoughts of him. The plan was to… Castiel—no to, cut off Famine's ring and break this spell and—God the curls behind his ears—_shit_—no, the _plan_—she tried, she really did, not to stare at Cas's profile from where she sat. He was staring into space, jaw clenched tightly, a burger hovering in front of his face, but his mouth was closed. God, his _mouth_—her hands were literally trembling now, she had to fight with herself to keep them still. Her thoughts went from coherent to complete mush, yammering in her mind and howling at her to touch him, just touch him, you need him so much and just—touch him, Alex, _take him! _

Panicking, not remembering about the demons or the plan or anything, she shoved the door of the backseat open, tripped over her own feet, breathing heavily, not even noticing where she was going, just _had—to—get—a—way—now_ or she was seriously going to rip the car apart to get to Cas.

She was aware that she was in a dark parking lot and stumbling in no general direction—then she saw that a man in a suit was bearing down on her, his eyes black as night. She reached back to where her knife always rested in the belt loop of her jeans and—oh _shit_, she was wearing a dress, where was her knife?! Before she had a chance to react any further, the demon went flying backwards into the side of the building, sending brick and rubble flying. Confused, Alex whirled, saw Cas, striding toward her, his hand outstretched—had he just done that to the demon?

Cas didn't stop when he reached her, he grabbed Alex roughly by both arms of her jacket, and took them away from there—she felt the slight head rush of moving through space. They were no longer in the parking lot, they were instead somewhere dim and cold. Shivering, for a moment once again clear-headed, Alex looked around. "Where _are_ we?"

It looked like a walk-in freezer—about five feet by five—and Cas, similarly confused, still holding her by the arms of her jacket, looked around, horrified almost. "Wrong place—the restaurant—I meant to take us away from here—it's… Famine… he's close, I can't seem to focus—I—"

He jumped almost as Alex grabbed him by his lapels, trying to pull him to her. "What are you doing?" he asked, panicked, putting a hand against either of her shoulders, holding her back from himself.

"I'm losing my mind," she said, similarly panicked, sounding less and less sure. "I need—" she said, her voice cracking as she visibly strained, trying to stop herself from saying it, but she _couldn't_, she was breathing hard like she'd been running for an hour, "_you_," she managed, the word full of emotion… and as soon as she'd said it, her expression grew dark, full of desirous abandon. _"Now_," she said, voice lower and demanding now. Cas felt his entire body flush at those words, the way she said them, the look in her eyes—and he was suddenly fighting harder than he ever had before.

The past hour had been difficult enough, but he'd been able to muddle through with the food as a distraction, but now, there was nothing to distract him from her, nothing to stand in the way and she was trying to pull him to her—no, _no_.

He couldn't let this happen, not here, not now, not under the spell of Famine, she was vulnerable and he couldn't protect her from the things he wanted to do to her—not much longer—he was literally shaking from the effort as he held himself back from her, kept her at arms length. He was breathing hard now, terrified. "I have to take us out of here—" he said, but he wasn't moving and he wasn't taking them away, he was just realizing it was already much too late. She stared at him, breathless, struggling to get to him, making it so very impossible for him to resist, her eyes, her mouth, her entire being sealing his fate completely. She looked so perfect and she was so close and he needed to touch her, kiss her, be with her—it was over, he realized dimly, his own thoughts fading away into the chaos of furious desire.

"I'm sorry," he only just managed to say, the last clear-headed thought he could muster as he gave in to the torrent of desire. The hands that had been holding her back now pulling her to crash against him as he claimed her waiting mouth with his—she made some kind of relieved, wanton sound, her arms already wrapping around his neck and she grabbed a fistful of his hair, _hard_, pressing her body against his desperately, making soft little sounds that set him over the edge, turned him into a desperate man—he pushed her against the cold metal shelf behind her, so fast and hard that some bottles fell down and shattered around their feet. In response, she shoved him backwards aggressively, hands pressed hard into his chest—he slammed into the opposite shelf, knocking several boxes off—and he stared at her in complete awe for the couple seconds that she broke the kiss. She gripped his coat tight in both of her hands, yanked him to her, kissing him savagely, then grabbed his face with both of her hands, a strangled moan escaping from her mouth and into his. Another surge of warmth flushed Cas, driving him to the point of insanity.

In a trance, out of control, Cas crushed her against him possessively, his arms wrapped around her, one of his hands finding its way up between the jacket and the dress, to the warm, bare skin of her back and suddenly, he wanted more and needed the jacket _gone_—he fumbled, pulling at it as they stumbled back to the other shelf, mouths refusing to part—he vaguely felt her pushing at his jacket and coat, making a groan like she was frustrated.

Her jacket came off finally and he threw it aside haphazardly, one hand now on her bare back and he made a frustrated sound. His other hand cupped the top of her shoulder, then grazing down the front of her, trailing down over her and then grasping her hip, thumb digging hard in against the bone there. Alex gasped—literally gasped—but it was a sound wrought with some kind of primal pleasure he'd never heard her make and Cas felt something in him break and he groaned throatily, barely able to contain himself—he needed _more_, this wasn't _enough_, and he grabbed frantically at the side of her thigh through her dress. He was desperate for something, but he wasn't sure what.

She was still pushing his coat and jacket off, trying to, and he let her go for a second, yanked them off clumsily for her, straining himself—he didn't want to stop kissing her for even a second as he practically ripped off the pieces of clothing—the second they were off of him, she caught his tie in her hand and pulled him back to her, making a frantic, relieved sound—she seized the front of his shirt in both hands and ripped it open brutally, the buttons breaking off and skittering around on the metal floor. Yanking the shirt open unceremoniously to bare his chest and torso, she didn't even bother about removing the tie, just pressed her palm flat against his warm chest and slightly to his left—she could feel his heart beating rapidly, and relaxed her hand so just her fingertips trailed down, down, ghosting along his rapidly rising and falling ribcage, then his hipbone, where his belted slacks started. He quivered, literally, breaking the kiss, his eyes squeezed shut, mouth hanging open right above hers, and then he let loose a higher-pitched, helpless sound as her hand trailed further down, brushed something else. He seemed to snap, grabbing her by the back of the neck, kissing her harder, bruisingly, his other hand crushing her to him at the small of her back.

Frenzied, he whirled her around, slammed her into the front door of the freezer, a solid metal wall and she gasped again—Cas grabbed her roughly underneath each leg, right behind each knee, lifting her up—she was hungrily searching for his mouth again, grabbing each side of his face in both hands as she wrapped her legs around him and he lifted her up—his hands stayed there for a minute, in the hollows behind her knees… and then they slid up torturously, skimming the backs of her legs and then running over the curve of her hips and upwards to grasp either side of her waist.

Cas was dimly aware, somewhere far away, that these things were coming to him at an alarmingly natural and terrifyingly fast pace—including what he did next, without even thinking. He ground his hips into hers—and the pressure and friction between their bodies rendered him useless, took him soaring high and feeling like he could just let go, reach the limit of the sky itself and tumble down, fall forever—the second he ground his hips toward hers, a choked, primal sound escaped Alex, they broke the kiss and she grabbed a fistful of his shirt, hanging on to him for dear life, her expression dazed, her eyes heavy-lidded, her breath coming in shallow little gasps—and Cas was mesmerized by her like this and this raw and urgent thing happening between them. He had no choice but to grind into her again, pulling at her furiously, needing her _closer_, needing more of this pressure and sensation, more of her. Writhing against him, her body and the sensation of it against him caused him to let out a low sound in the deepest part of his throat, almost like he was in pain, but he wasn't—not at all and he felt frustration overtaking him—_it wasn't enough_—

That thought stirred him out of the mania and he realized, stronger this time, that this was really happening, he _couldn't control himself_, he wasn't sure what would happen if he didn't stop this—with every ounce of willpower he possessed, he pulled back, just for a second, trying to escape, trying to save them. "I can't—I can't hold back—much longer—" Cas managed, desperately, strained, not even sure how to put it into words. He wanted to crush her underneath himself, demolish her completely, possess her in every way, _destroy her_.

"I'll _hurt you_—" Cas said, despairing, because he couldn't pull away anymore, he was barely holding himself back as it was. In his arms Alex suddenly looked different, like she'd come out of a trance or woken up. "What—" she said, looking at him, confused, a little disconcerted—but her confusion faded, she didn't say anything else, she _saw_ him and touched the side of his face slowly, gentle, her thumb brushing against the side of his lower lip. Her eyes searched his, searching for something… something that she seemed to see, and holding his gaze fervently until their lips met, she leaned in, kissed him simply. His stomach seemed to flip inside out at the gentle touch and for the briefest moment, Cas knew that was _Alex _kissing him like that, not Alex under Famine's influence. It was _her_, and it was _him_, and his whole body reacted, responded—he touched the side of her face too, with the utmost care, lost in her presence and touch. And then he felt the pervasive thoughts taking over again, his hands tightened on her, and he was trying so hard to pull away from her, save her from what his thoughts wanted to do to her. But Alex whimpered, feeling him attempt to pull away.

"_Don't_ stop Cas—" she made a pathetic sound, "_Uhh_,_ please_," she begged, grabbing a fistful of his shirt, refusing to let him go. He was stronger than her, physically. But in that moment, she was his weakness, and he was no stronger than her. His willpower was forgotten at her touch, her plea. He couldn't help himself. He let go, gave in, forgot his worries and fears, his desire intensifying a hundredfold, he had to _have her_, now. His hold on her had weakened for a few seconds, but with renewed vigor, he slammed himself into her, instinct took over, blinding him, he wasn't sure how but they crashed through the solid metal refrigerator door, completely breaking the door off its hinges—but neither was paying attention, busy barreling into the kitchen where, out of control, Cas crashed them into a countertop, kissing Alex wildly.

Pots and pans clattered to the ground loudly even as Cas turned and threw Alex up into one of the empty corners, denting the plaster wall a little bit in the process, but neither seemed to notice, Cas was grabbing her animalistically, one hand on her ass and another up against her back, fingers dug hard into her skin, crushing her to him, and she had her head back, noisily almost sobbing when he pressed himself against her again. She had her legs wrapped around him tightly, was fumbling with his shirt, no maybe his pants, breathing loud in his ear, then pulling back, finding his mouth again, biting down hard on his lower lip, enough to draw blood. Agonized with unsatisfied desire, Cas growled against her lips, a sound that started out low, then changed into a higher pitched gasping sound as they moved against each other raggedly. Cas pushed at her dress, and Alex felt two of his fingers curl around the band of her underwear and brush against the skin beneath it—she whimpered, distressed at the fire of his touch—that combined with the feeling of _him _against her there, _right there_ even through their clothes was almost too much for her. A tortured sobbing sound escaped Alex's mouth and she grabbed onto his shoulders with both hands suddenly, hard, losing her mind—

There was a loud clattering noise somewhere behind them, and startled, Cas and Alex froze and stopped as a familiar, shocked voice uttered "holy _SHIT_."

* * *

_Author's Notes: …. yeah. I ended it there. Before you guys start telling me how evil I am for ending it there, please know I __**know**__ how evil I am and… I'm not sorry… muahaha… next chapter coming ASAP as possible. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT OMGGGGG. _


	27. It's Complicated

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 27 / It's Complicated

"_I love you as certain dark things are to be loved... in secret, between the shadow and the soul."  
_- Neruda

* * *

Brothers weren't supposed to see their sisters involved in this kind of thing. _Ever._ But he was seeing it all the same.

He'd rushed through the door into the restaurant kitchen, hearing a lot of loud noises like there was some kind of fight or struggle happening—but the second he'd entered the kitchen he'd realized he'd had it _all wrong_. In the space of a second, he took it all in: Cas, pinning Alex up against the wall—Alex's bare legs tightly wrapped around him, her dress shoved up to the top of her legs—one of Cas's hands was there at the base of her hip bone, _inside the dress_—his trench coat and jacket were missing, his white dress shirt was bunched down around his shoulders halfway off—they were kissing each other with wild and passionate abandon, and the way they were _moving_ against each other, the _sounds _they were making, especially his sister… were sounds that had him thinking that _mother of God _he'd walked in on them _having sex_. Stopping blindly and abruptly mid-step, he'd clumsily knocked into the counter, sending a pot clattering to the floor.

"Holy _SHIT_," Sam uttered in abject horror, frozen and staring, unable to look away. Alex and Cas stopped kissing and moving, looking over at him in dazed surprise, then slight confusion, as if they were coming out of a haze. Sam stared, aghast: Cas had a bloody lip, there was a huge gash on Alex's arm and some smaller scrapes and cuts and crazy red marks like where she'd been grabbed repeatedly, their hair was disheveled, their clothes were a mess—they looked like they'd been in a fight. As their eyes cleared and they seemed to see him, take in their surroundings, the two of them looked from Sam to each other, surprised, breathing hard, horror flashing across their faces as if they hadn't known what they were doing. They untangled, Cas pulled away, stumbled back even as Alex shakily leaned back into the corner—and there was a flash of semi-relief when Sam realized they _hadn't_ been having sex—Cas's pants weren't open—but oh _God _Cas had clearly been ready… Sam looked away, traumatized. Clearly embarrassed, Cas stood off a few steps from Alex—the angel was looking at her hesitantly and in shock, and then down at himself, seeming to be clueless. Alex was avoiding looking at either of them… really, _really_ out of breath and appearing to be completely and utterly mortified.

"What—what's—" Sam stuttered out, at a loss. Was this Famine? Had Famine done this? Because… _wait_. Sam looked between them in disbelief. "I… I broke Famine's spell like_ five minutes ago_, guys."

At that, Alex looked up at him, temporarily seeming to forget her embarrassment in favor of severe confusion. "Five minutes ago?" She seemed to think that was impossible. "I was in the _Impala_ five minutes ago," she protested. "You weren't even _here_ five minutes ago."

Sam looked back at his sister, not sure what she was talking about. He'd been at Biggerson's for like ten minutes, saved Dean from Famine and his henchmen demons… broken the spell, then been told by a frantic Dean that Cas and Alex were missing and you check in here, I'll look outside. And literally ten seconds after Dean went outside, Sam heard the sound of pots and pans falling and what he'd thought was the sound of Alex crying out in pain… and then he'd walked in on them.

From where Cas stood a few steps off, he spoke up slowly, looking at the ground. "I think that I… accidentally… moved us forward in time by a few minutes." He paused, embarrassed. "I was very…" he swallowed, looking down uncertainly, "uh, distracted."

"Jesus _Christ_," Sam uttered, even more mortified than before, bringing his hand up to cover his face. He didn't need Cas to explain any further—he definitely got the implication. This was way, way too much for Sam to process—and when he glanced at Alex, he saw her cheeks were bright red and she looked absolutely beside herself with awkward, burning embarrassment. Sam gathered himself with a deep breath, putting his hands on his hips and trying to breathe normally.

Alex straightened up as if to walk forward, but faltered, made a sound of surprise and pain. Her arm shot out to catch herself against the wall beside herself. She leaned heavily against it, wincing, teeth gritted together. Sam and Cas moved toward her at the same time in concern, but Alex took one look at Sam approaching and she shrank away in fear. Stopping short, Sam wondered why—then his heart clenched as he realized and remembered. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, and away came the bright red demon blood. Ashamed, understanding, Sam held his hands up in a gesture of yielding. "I'm not gonna—I'm _fine_," he assured her. Last time he'd been high on this stuff, he'd hurt her.

Alex had allowed Cas near to her, and the angel was now holding her up gingerly—she wouldn't look at him though—Cas was looking at Sam in dark suspicion. "No you're not fine," Cas said darkly. "You've had demon blood." The way the angel stood with Alex holding her close was fiercely protective; almost _possessive _and Sam was stilled by the sight of it—then there was a twinge of anger and protectiveness on his end.

"I said I'm _fine_," Sam repeated, a little hostile when he spoke this time. He made for his sister again, because she looked like she was in agony and she wouldn't look at Cas at all and what if, _what if _Cas had done that to her and _she hadn't wanted it_? Angel or not, Sam would kill him where he stood if the guy had in any way harmed his sister—he felt up to the task, too, demon blood humming through his veins and making him feel sharper than normal, stronger than normal, buzzing with power and ability.

"Stay _back_, Sam," Cas said threateningly, his voice carrying great command. Sam did stop but not because of Cas. From behind Cas's shoulder, Alex was looking at Sam with wide, scared eyes. Eyes that remembered what he'd done to her the last time he'd been high on this stuff. Sam felt a wave of shame overcome him and sadness that she didn't want him near her. His bravado faded a little and he grew pensive. He had _tried _to resist it; the desire to drink demon blood. But he hadn't been able to, not at all. It had been over before it had begun. Maybe that's what had happened here, between these two, Sam reflected uncertainly.

Alex made another sound of pain, and it was easy to tell she was restraining herself—that she was hurting a lot more than she was letting on. "What's wrong with her, Cas?" Sam asked, overcome with worry, his focus shifting.

"It was me," Cas said, sounding disgusted and sickened and terrified. "I did this."

Alex looked away, groaned and shut her eyes tightly, hissing in pain. Sam felt sick but had no choice but to remain standing there, removed from the situation. Cas turned back to Alex, horrified concern returning to his face again. He was cautiously holding her by her arms, giving the impression that he had no idea what to do, but felt entirely responsible. "I'm… I'm so sorry Alex," Cas stumbled verbally, sounding frightened and shellshocked—something Sam had never heard in the angel's voice before. Cas withdrew his left hand from where it grasped her arm, looking at her bright red blood that came away on his fingers. The sight of that seemed to make Castiel sink deeper into despair. He looked at Alex again, shaking his head blankly, at a complete loss. Cas's voice almost broke as he sought her gaze and she purposefully avoided meeting it. "I didn't… I didn't mean to do this to you," he managed in an unsteady voice.

In Cas's hesitant, careful grip, Alex swallowed, overwhelmed by the pain and by Cas's pleading, gentle statement. She couldn't really focus right now. The pain was bad—really bad. She'd felt it distantly when the kiss had ended, when they had untangled from each other, but it had suddenly hit her full force—pangs and aches in her back, her arms, her legs—from where Cas had slammed her around and grabbed her hard, thrown her against things without restraint. Her shoulder actually hurt the worst maybe, and she breathed out unevenly, realizing it was dislocated. She glanced at Cas, so embarrassed. The pain had felt like pleasure under the spell, but now it was just _pain_—crippling, almost unbearable. On the side of her arm, she was aware of a searing sensation—she moved her arm out a little, looked down at it—there was a huge, bloody gash there—had that happened when they'd crashed through the freezer door? There were a couple other places on her arms that felt scraped or cut, and she could tell that all over, she was going to have bruises come morning.

She winced, gritted her teeth together, groaned in pain. In front to her, she could literally_ feel _how concerned and ashamed and unsure Cas was, which only made it worse for her… because a minute ago the way he'd been moving against her had rendered her into putty, literally seconds away from… from… she swallowed, shut her eyes. From coming apart completely, to put it delicately. _Jesus Christ_. She hadn't been able to control herself at all, and just remembering the way their panting breaths and guttural moans had sounded… Alex wished she could disappear right now. As if the pain everywhere wasn't bad enough, her ears felt like they were burning off, and her stomach wanted to be sick out of humiliation. In the heat of the moment it had felt _so righ_t and she hadn't wanted anything more than she wanted him—and now she couldn't look at him at all; too afraid that she would see judgement or condescension or worst of all, disgust. Had Cas really wanted her? Or was it just Famine? He'd suddenly seemed really fond of burgers, too, and Cas had never given those a second look before...

The sound of a door slamming somewhere nearby, probably the main entrance, startled them all. "Sammy! Sam!" Dean's voice thundered, muffled, coming from another room. Alex's pulse rocketed in alarm and beside her, even Cas seemed to realize _this was bad_. Reacting at the same time as them, Sam's expression chilled over, then became urgent. "Cas. Clothes—_now_," he said, and turned, went quickly out of the doorway and into the main part of the restaurant. Cas disappeared—literally—from Alex's side and she felt her stomach drop in shock—he just_ left_? How the hell could he just—

She didn't get to finish the thought. Cas reappeared in front of her, looking normal again—_everything _back to normal, like he'd regenerated everything. His bloody lip was gone, his hair wasn't a wreck, the buttons on his shirt were back, his tie was there (crooked, of course), his jacket and coat were back in place. Like nothing had happened at all, like he'd erased it completely. He stood in front of her, wordlessly holding her jacket out to her, gaze hesitant. She took the jacket blankly. Their eyes met. The gaze of two people who had no idea how to face what had just happened between them. He looked so regretful and so concerned, lost. But all Alex wanted to know was… had that been _him_? Was that _him_ who had wanted her like that? Because she knew during what had happened between them, her mind had not been her own, not entirely—but at her deepest level, beyond the madness of Famine's spell… she had wanted him. All of him. Still did.

She looked away, unable to maintain eye contact. She couldn't tell from looking at him what was going on inside his mind, anyway. She was so, so confused. To the point of agony.

She reflected in dazed apprehension that perhaps whatever had just happened with them—the highly intimate moment… the first time she'd ever been touched in that way at all… it had been caused by a spell, a trick—that there was a very good chance that it would drive some kind of wedge between them, ruin whatever flimsy friendship they'd had before… that the moment they'd been sucked into would mean she would lose more of Cas than she had, which wasn't even enough to begin with—the idea of this devastated her completely, caused her throat to seize up in the sudden threat of tears. The physical pain—the utter passion and wild abandon of the moment they had shared—the standstill now and the not knowing how this would affect them—she couldn't help it: her composure crumpled, she began to cry miserably, looking down at her hands that held her jacket tightly.

And Cas, at the sight of her tears, felt ruined completely. _He had done this. He had caused this. He had hurt her. _In fact, if Sam hadn't intervened, Castiel felt certain that he would have _killed_ her under Famine's spell. This chilled him to the core. The other couples had killed each _other_, but he was an angel, a hundred times more powerful and strong than Alex and he would have killed her if they had continued—it was in fact a miracle he hadn't hurt her worse. This knowledge caused him some of the deepest distress he'd ever known.

And even though part of him wanted to disappear from her, hide in shame—free her of the abominable sight of him—there was a stronger need in himself to help her somehow, and he was acting before he'd even thought it through. He touched the side of her shoulder, not sure why, and then briefly reflecting maybe she would scorn his touch, after… after everything that had just happened. After what he had done to her. But at the touch of his hand Alex looked up at him, startled and tearstained, going still. She didn't reject or pull away, she just looked at him openly, and Castiel thought of how she was so painfully beautiful to him, even like this. Her eyes shone with tears. Tears he'd put there. Castiel felt physical pain ripple in his vessel. And his hand, of its own accord, went from her shoulder to the side of her face, the touch somewhere between tenderness and despair. _How had he done this to her?_ _How could he have lost control like that? _Briefly… just briefly… the things Anna had shown him in the future flashed before his mind's eye.

Then they heard a loud commotion—the sound of Dean coming in and Sam talking loudly—and Cas pulled back abruptly, rapidly distancing himself by a few feet and leaving Alex to stare at him questioningly, agonized. There was an ache of pain in him at the sight of her standing alone there, an ache in a place that wasn't physical. This distance from her was too much, but he had no other choice.

Dean stormed in loudly, closely followed by a worried Sam. He just missed seeing Cas touching Alex. "Jesus _Christ_, where were you two?" he demanded, then looked around at the destroyed kitchen—the pots and pans everywhere, the freezer door ripped off its hinges. "Where the hell did you poof off to? You were outside the restaurant and then you just Batman away without a word?!" Dean sounded enraged.

"I… tried to take her someplace safe," Cas said. He wasn't lying, but to Alex, he sounded guilty and like he _was _lying. Before he could slip up and make Dean suspicious, Alex found her voice, covering clumsily with the best story she could come up with. She'd hurriedly dashed her tears away when Dean was raging at Cas, but she still felt like Dean would see through her completely. "We, we ended up behind the restaurant… got attacked by more demons out there," she lied, scared out of her skin for Dean to look at her. Which he finally did.

He looked at her, taking in her messy appearance and cuts and the gash on her arm. She held her breath without realizing. And for just a moment, reflected that she shouldn't be this terrified of her own brother.

But when he saw the way she looked like she'd been beat up, Dean's rage disappeared instantly and was replaced with shock—he went to her, took her gently by the shoulders—she winced—he didn't even touch her that hard, but the skin was tender. It would be bruised later, for sure. Dean saw her wince, looked her up and down in genuine concern. "You're hurt," he said, and Alex looked at him kind of in surprise. Besides the talk they'd had after she got back from 1978, this was the first time he'd sounded genuinely caring toward her in _weeks_.

Dean touched the side of her head, scrutinizing her in worry, then he turned to Cas, expression darkening. "Jesus, Cas, did you just let them beat on her while you stood back?" he asked. Cas was silent, guilty, and looked down in response. _Holy shit… this was just horrible_, Alex thought, barely able to keep her composure. But she had no choice.

"Relax, Dean, I'll be fine," she said, trying to get Cas out of the line of fire, not sure he could stand up under it. Dean turned his attention back to her, shook his head in dissatisfaction, but let it go, heaved a deep sigh. He let go of her and set his sights on Sam, who was standing off and watching. He still had the demon blood on his face. Dean slowly went to the other side of the kitchen, closer to Sam. Distracted and tense, Dean picked up a cast iron skillet from the counter that Sam stood next to. Hefting it up Dean smiled down at it humorlessly, twirled it a little in his hand. Everyone else looked at the skillet, unsure what Dean was suddenly interested in cookware. Then in a sudden burst of movement, Dean used it like a baseball bat and full-force hit Sam in the back of the head with it. Sam's six-foot-four frame went rag doll, and he crumpled down onto the floor, unconscious.

"Dean what the hell?!" Alex demanded, shocked. Beside her, a little closer now, Cas was looking at Dean in uncertainty and misunderstanding.

Dean slammed the pot down on the counter angrily, wrathful. "He's hopped up on demon blood, Al!" He pursed his lips, expression dark. "After last time... I ain't taking chances," he growled, staring down at Sam in a mixture of disgust, horror, and sadness. After last time. Alex looked from Dean to Sam, troubled, feeling like she was totally out of the loop. She wasn't entirely sure what had happened while she and Cas… uh… but could tell whatever it was had shaken her oldest brother up badly. Dean was stooping and grunting, yanking Sam's unconscious form up and then supporting him by slipping an arm around Sam's waist and yanking Sam's arm over his shoulder. Sam's massive head lolled forward limply.

"Cas, take us to Bobby's, _now_," Dean commanded intensely. "I need to get him on lockdown _stat_."

There was hesitation on Cas's part, a slight, fumbling glance in Alex's direction… and then they were gone from that place.

* * *

"Alright, ready?" Dean was bracing Alex's shoulder with his hands and she had this look of grudging dread on her face. She squeezed her eyes closed, nodded yes, bracing herself for the oncoming pain. "One, two, three," Dean counted, and on three, forcibly slammed her shoulder back into place with a loud crunch. She made a horrible, pained sound and tears leaked out of her eyes as she let out a deep, tense breath, her cheeks puffing up.

Cas stood a few steps back, watching her in distress, uselessly holding the box of medical supplies Dean had shoved at him a minute ago.

Brutal. Across the centuries, Castiel had come to associate this word with wars and violence... the Khmer Rouge killing fields, the first World War, the Massacre of the Innocents in the first century. The unrestrained violence, the mercilessness, the disregard for the preciousness of human life—the dark tangle of violence, anger, and betrayal that resulted in death and destruction—that was brutal. He'd understood the word at a certain level, associated it with physical acts and periods in history.

But Castiel reflected that this _felt_ brutal to him. To helplessly stand by and see Dean fixing up Alex's wounds. Wounds that _he_ had inflicted. In a frenzy of passion—a passion he hadn't known himself capable of—he'd lost control almost, he'd been moments away from ending her life without being able to stop himself. It hurt him inside, gave him so many dark, tormented thoughts. _He had done this_. And it was unforgivable. She was avoiding his gaze, and had been, since... since the spell had been broken.

Once Sam, still unconscious, had been handcuffed and put into the panic room, Dean had immediately set to work looking over Alex's injuries more thoroughly. He'd decided she needed stitches on her arm.

"Hand me that, Cas," Dean commanded, giving the angel a side eye. Cas complied, handing over the supplies to Dean but with no great certainty. Alex sat on an old chair that had been there in the basement, and Dean had pulled up a big storage box to sit on. He rummaged through the box of supplies and got out an alcohol pad, took Alex's arm in his hand and swiped the disinfectant across the gash there. She breathed in sharply, let out a sound of repressed pain. "Stings like a bitch," she mumbled, strained. Dean was getting out a needle and a spool of shiny black surgical thread. Cas watched with increasing alarm and discomfort.

"Shouldn't you take her to a medical professional?" he asked, and received a sharp glance from Dean in return. "Cas, after thirty years of patching my kid siblings up, I think I got a simple stitch job."

Alex glanced up at Cas, and their eyes met for a brief, torturous second.

He tried not to think of her there against him, in his arms. He felt a mixture of shame and confusion wash over him as he looked away from her. Shame because in his deepest thoughts he had liked it—he had _wanted _it—not with anyone else, but with _her_. And he didn't completely understand what it meant or why. He almost never understood the _why_ behind his actions. In the past he didn't need to understand his actions, as he hadn't been responsible for them. He just did what was commanded. There had been a comfort there in not having to decide wrong from right. Yes, he had felt the increasing pull of doubt, the increasing desire to do what he thought in his own mind to be right… but now he was on the opposite end of the spectrum, wildly piloting himself through life and situations with nothing to steer him but his thoughts, convictions, feelings. All of which were constantly clashing, circling each other, fighting each other for dominance, warring within him.

"Ready?" Dean asked, and Alex, grabbed the whiskey bottle Dean had brought her and downed a huge swig, then set it back down, looked at Dean in resignation. "Do your worst," she said, a humorous comment said without any humor. Cas watched, unable to look away, worried.

Dean took in a deep breath, muttered something like "here goes nothing." Holding her with one hand by the elbow, he carefully stuck the needle in at the bottom of the wound and made the first stitch. Alex's whole body tensed perceptibly and she let out a pained groan that she attempted to stifle. Dean paused, looked at his sister in a disquieted way. She felt him stop and gave him a dirty look. "Sometime today, Dean, _God_," she hissed through clenched teeth. She looked up, staring at the ceiling, every muscle in her body tight. "Yes ma'm," he muttered, refocusing and continuing his work, stitching the open wound back together. Each stitch seemed to pain Alex worse. She sat very still, eyes screwed closed, lips pressed together hard, going inwards. She was breathing hard through her nose, and her face became more and more scrunched in pain. Cas had to look away, turn and shut his eyes. But he could still hear the pained, strained way she breathed. Languishing in self-loathing, he cursed himself for doing this to her.

A minute later, it ended. "Done," Dean said, tying off the thread and cutting off the excess, handing her a clean rag. Alex let out a deeply relieved breath and took the rag, held it against the wound to stop the bleeding. And then they started when they heard the sound of Sam banging against the side of the panic room where they'd cuffed him. "Guys? _Guys_!"

Everyone went still and quiet and looked toward where the sound had come from. "Hey! I'm in here, help me! _Help me_!" Sam sounded alarmed and in anguish. Dean set down the box of medical stuff and stood up, went to the door of the panic room, slid open the slat just a little. Sam saw it. His cuffs rattled loudly. "Dean! _Dean_! You gotta get me out of here!"

Dean looked like he was thinking about saying something, then heaved a heavy breath, shut the viewport, his expression grave.

Watching silently, Cas and Alex remained where they were as Dean came back, grabbed the whiskey bottle, and leaned against the wall across from Alex. He was stone-faced and took a swig from the bottle of liquor. "Let me out of here, please! _Help_!" Sam's shouts intensified.

Dean closed his eyes, even as Alex put an elbow on her knee and her face in a hand. To Castiel, they were suddenly and irrevocably the picture of defeat. Sam continued to shout and as Cas watched Alex and Dean, morose, glum, deflated… Castiel felt the same way himself, touched with empathy. But he knew that Sam wasn't himself right now, that this was something that was temporary, not permanent. He wondered if he should try to remind them of that, take a chance and try to help again. So, he did. "That's not him in there," he said quietly. "Not really."

There was a pause, where Alex peeked up at him solemnly, and Dean let out a soft breath. "I know," Dean said heavily. Sam was groaning now, maybe weeping even. The sound was muffled a little by the walls. Alex's face contorted as if in pain as she listened to the sounds, her gaze dropped to the floor.

Dean was making a similar face to hers.

"Sam just has to get it out of his system," Castiel continued, attempting to comfort them somehow. "Then he'll be—"_ fine_? Cas glanced at Alex, who looked like she wanted to hear that from him. But Cas realized he didn't know if Sam _would_ be fine. With the angels looming over their heads, the threat of Lucifer… the future he'd seen… Cas trailed off, silent.

And Dean, suddenly tenser than before, straightened himself, expression unreadable. "Listen, I just, uh… I just need to get some air."

Alex watched Dean go, her eyes flickered toward Castiel and then away, her hands clasped and pressed between her knees now, her expression tense and troubled. She looked pained, and the sight of the marks and the blood smeared along her arm made such intense guilt wash over him again. Sam's shouts echoed again, muffled and frenzied.

Cas looked at Alex slowly, barely able to bring himself to even look at her. She was just a girl. A young human girl, a child in comparison to himself. The reality of what he'd done to her kept sinking in as he looked at her. She was so small and young and vulnerable and he should have been able to stop himself from all of it. But especially from hurting her. He wondered if she had truly desired to wrap herself around him like that and kiss him with fire, passion, organic primal fury. In the moment it had felt real. It had felt like if he didn't move forward, crush her to himself, that he would die from desperation. In fact, he almost still felt that way. That if he couldn't hold her, protect her, touch her… he would die.

Disgusted with himself, Castiel looked away now. He had only been in a human vessel for two years but the troubles it came with, the burden of emotions and thoughts that seemed interwoven with feelings, feelings that were devoid of logic… it confounded him completely. He couldn't fathom how Alex could contain the noise in her mind, if it were anything like his. How she shouldered the burden of it and survived year after year, giving the impression that she was handling it, coping. He felt somehow weaker than her in that respect. Yes, he had seen centuries come and go, kingdoms rise and fall. But this human girl had _felt_, had been betrayed, abused, forgotten, misused, overlooked, hurt, dragged through metaphorical fire… for her whole life.

In moments like this, Castiel felt that perhaps he might fall apart. So he wondered, briefly, how she held herself together like she did. And how they would move past what had happened between them. His darkest fear was that the future he'd seen in 2014 would come true. That this was another step in that direction. Toward her dying at his hand. Nothing seemed more unthinkable. Still, the fleeting image of them together, content, living a normal life… it stayed with him, it warmed him even as it frightened him past the point of return.

Silent and still, Alex looked up at him finally, her eyes veiled and afraid and hurt. And in the background, Sam's screams continued.

"Are you... alright?" Cas finally asked her, filled with dread. The question made her look down and away, he noticed her breathing quickened and her mouth moved oddly. She stood up unevenly, trying to hide the way she was struggling. "I'll be fine," she replied, sounding distracted, sounding like she was lying.

She hugged herself, a hand on each opposite arm, facing halfway away from him, where he could only see her profile. His eyes swept over to where her stitched up wound would be. She held the now-bloody rag there still. He coveted for his ability to heal. But somehow he felt that even if he could take away the physical pain, she would still be hurt, she would still be avoiding his gaze like that. He didn't know what to do. How could they have been so close a few moments ago and now… this? He could see that she was watching him out of the corner of her eye. They were only a few feet away from each other, but it could have been miles—that's how stark and alone Cas felt.

And he felt loss because of that, because for a few snatched, hazy moments, he had felt _close_ to her in a way he wasn't able to explain. There in her arms, he'd been in her atmosphere and it had been a place where he felt so many things—and it hadn't been just physical, this closeness. It had somehow transcended that. It had set his heart beating faster, and his convictions rooting deeper. It had felt right, like belonging. This distance now, this silence and tension… it felt wrong to him.

"Alex! Dean! Someone _help me_!" Sam screamed, and Alex tensed, looked up, conflicted. Cas glanced in the direction where she looked, then back at her. "He'll probably be like this for a few days," Cas told her gently, cautiously. Not sure how she would react to him now.

Alex finally looked at him, didn't look away. But she looked apprehensive and guarded. "Cas… what… what was happening?" her voice was barely above a whisper. "What were we _doing_?"

His stomach jerked at her blunt question and his gaze faltered away. He knew that she wasn't asking _what _they were doing, but what it had _meant_, because… he wanted to know, too, so intensely. If she had wanted it, too, if below the current of the spell, that she had wanted that from him. He remembered that moment of clarity where he had fought back, broken away—and she had looked at him and _seen him_. Alex's question hung in the air. _'What were we _doing_?'_ He didn't have the answer, or maybe he did he just—didn't know how to articulate it.

"We were…" he began, uncertain, not possessing any clear idea of how to answer. And then the fear deeper than any ocean on earth overtook him when he again thought of the future Anna had shown him—he felt that if he admitted to her his deepest desires and affections, he risked everything—he risked _her_. And his mind screamed at him in quick succession, _you have to tell her!_ and then _she can't know!_ and in agony, Castiel realized he was trapped. He had no other choice but to hide more of himself and his true convictions from her in order to save her from the future; that he no other choice but to continue the lie he had started. The lie he had invented by taking away her memory of him kissing her in the panic room.

He steeled himself for what he was about to tell her. "It was... Famine's effect on us—" he said. He wouldn't look at her as he lied. It was too appalling—he didn't know if he could see her when he said what he said next. "It was—the vessel."

Alex sounded like she'd been betrayed, like she couldn't believe what he'd said. "...what?"

"It was the vessel," Castiel repeated, jaw clenching tightly.

"I… I don't believe you," Alex replied, but she sounded shaken and uncertain.

Castiel forced himself to look at her, and her expression made him want to die, but he couldn't let it sway him. He continued in the abominable lie, believing this was what was best, what would save her. "Jimmy… he liked brunettes."

Alex's expression became almost angry at that remark and she came closer to him, eyes narrowed. "Amelia—his _wife_?—was _blonde_."

Cas fumbled, feeling caught. He'd forgotten that. Alex's anger had transitioned into some kind of desperate hurt. "You can't tell me—" she said, "that all of that was just—that all of that wasn't you." She was almost begging him now for the truth, letting herself be vulnerable. "_None_ of it?" she sounded devastated.

Cas met her gaze. His conscience screamed at him that this was wrong. But he didn't know any other way to protect her. "I'm sorry," he replied, loathing himself. "It wasn't."

Alex stared at him, blinked, took a couple deep, fast breaths… then exploded. "That is such _bullshit_, Castiel!" she pretty much shouted, then her expression crumpled and she turned away, walked to the opposite wall and leaned there heavily, a palm against the wall. Her tiny body seemed to have trouble breathing, her shoulders trembling.

She'd bowed her head, and the top of it almost rested against the wall. Castiel watched her in a mixture of sadness, shock, and hurt. He should leave. He should walk away. He should let her be angry at him and become bitter, because that would distance them. That would save her. But the sight of her alone and hurting was too much for him to bear and he regretted what he'd said so much. His misery increased tenfold—nothing he did, no choice he made, seemed right. He went closer to her, stood just behind her, uncertain. And then put a hand gently, so gently, on her right shoulder blade.

Alex's head came up, but she stared straight ahead. She seemed to have gone cold. Her voice was calm, low, quiet. "Don't touch me."

He didn't understand, but after a couple seconds, did as she said. She turned her head slightly toward him, but wouldn't look at him, not even sidelong. "Just leave me alone, Cas," she said evenly, voice low and measured, blank.

Confused, Castiel didn't move yet. Usually her anger made her volatile—but she was quiet, placid, a still shining lake instead of a stormy ocean. And somehow this disturbed him more than anything else. She wasn't reacting like he'd thought she would. Maybe she wasn't angry. Maybe this was deeply hurt beyond the point of anger. Castiel felt overcome with despair and frustration and regret. He couldn't _heal_ her, he couldn't _comfort_ her—he couldn't _fix this_ even though he so desperately needed to do all three. He tried again, his hand hovering just above her back. He wanted to touch her so badly, reassure her in some small way, that at least that he didn't despise her. "Alex…"

"I said leave!" she snapped, voice trembling, turning away from him pointedly.

And stung, Castiel took his hand away. Stepped back. And disappeared.

Sam's shouts had dissolved into pitiful moans and Alex shut her eyes tight, dug deep for composure. She turned around robotically almost, made her way out of the basement. She walked up the stairs slowly, unseeingly. Each step she took heavier than the last. Her heart felt like it was a twisted mess of pain. It overshadowed any physical pain she felt. In fact, she wanted to feel _more_ physical pain than what she was feeling right now. She let the rag drop away from her arm wound, not caring anymore.

"Hey kiddo, you okay?" Bobby asked, standing there at the top of the stairs. He was looking anxious and like he wasn't sure what to do—Alex had forgotten he would even be here but… she couldn't find anything in herself to respond to him at all. She walked right past him, ignoring him. She couldn't look at anyone or talk to them or _anything_. She felt like the second she opened her mouth, she'd lose it. She was in pain of the heart, body and mind and no one, nothing was more important than just getting the hell out of here right now. In a haze of painful limps, Alex went outside and into the darkness of night, struggling her way to the end of Bobby's road, trying to hold herself together, trying to shove the painful feelings down and away. For now, the stabbing sensations in her thighs were distracting from those feelings. Until she thought of _why _her legs hurt so bad where Cas had grabbed her with his super-human strength hands. _God. _Overhead, thunder rumbled.

She reached the end of Bobby's road. This is where the old rusted "Singer Auto Salvage" sign arced over the dirt road, and on either side of it there were junked cars. Alex leaned heavily against one of them, both palms on the side of the hood above the wheel well. She couldn't stop the thoughts from coming.

His words and what they meant to her echoed through her mind. _'I'm sorry. It wasn't.' _He'd said. And she'd heard:_ it wasn't me who wanted you that way. It wasn't me who practically ravished you in furious passion. It wasn't me who looked at you with eyes full of desire and need. It wasn't me who touched you like you've never been touched before. It wasn't me who almost pushed you over the brink. It wasn't me. It wasn't me, it was all this body I inhabit. How could you even think that it was _me_? _

She shouldn't be surprised, is what she kept telling herself. He was a friggin' angel, a creature from a totally different realm… he'd existed for thousands of years—who was she? Some little blip on the radar. One single grain on the beach. How could this being want to be with her like she wanted to be with him? She felt cursed, because only _she_ would get loopy under the spell of an apocalyptic horseman and make out with her guardian angel and then, _and then_ make the mistake of thinking he wanted it too. But dammit! How_ couldn't_ he have?!

She remembered the conviction and passion he'd kissed her with, the raw desire he'd clearly felt _for her_… she wanted to stomp her foot down and cry out in frustration because her instincts were _screaming_ at her that it was _not_ fantasy, she wasn't crazy and there had to be something to this!—because Castiel had told her, and _recently_ too, that the vessel and Jimmy were dwarfed by who he was, that Jimmy was gone pretty much. So how the hell could that be true that the _vessel _wanted her, not _him_?

If it had been a person other than herself, would Cas still have acted? Still done all that? Because she remembered that moment of clarity where the ragingly lustful feelings had ebbed away and he had pulled back, and she had _seen him_, seen such soulful things in his gaze… things in his eyes that were never there at any other time… and she had kissed him then, and he had returned the kiss without hesitation—_God_ and of all of it, _everything_ that had happened in that restaurant kitchen, that shook her the deepest and hurt her the most. _It had been real. _It had been_ them_. Why would Castiel _lie _to her about this? Why was this happening to her, at all? She was in love with an angel who couldn't, wouldn't, or _didn't _love her back. Maybe some combination of all three. But she so badly wanted him to. So badly. How had this happened?

Unable to hold it in, Alex sobbed loudly, a single wretched sound. And angry at herself for it, she flew into a fit of rage, whirled around unevenly, fists clenched at her sides as she looked at the sky wrathfully, eyes glistening. "Castiel, you_ fucking coward_!" She screamed. "How dare you do that to me and then say it wasn't even you!" Her voice broke at this point. "_Liar_!"

She sat down on the hood miserably and cried bitterly with her face in both of her hands. He wasn't a liar, but she wanted him to be. She _so badly _wanted him to have wanted her like that, for him to be the one, the _only one_, who'd overwhelmed her every sense and made her feel alive and wanted and warm and beautiful. She thought of all the moments that had built up and brought her here, of all the meetings between herself and Cas since the beginning where she'd been unsure of him, hesitant to trust. She thought of the first time he healed her, his gentle touch and the awe she'd felt for him. She thought of the second time he'd healed her, directly going against what Uriel had said, doing it with Uriel in the _same friggin' room_, doing it _anyway _and_ looking at her_ like he did. Maybe that was when it happened, she didn't know—she just knew that it had, and she didn't know how to fall _out _of love with him. Her reality hurt badly and she wanted to be anyone but Alex Winchester, anyone but the person feeling these things—

"Alex."

She jumped up, shocked, to see Cas standing in front of her, his expression miserable. The very sight of him reduced her to nothing, and she thought that just a few minutes ago, she'd had him in a way she'd never had anyone else...

Her misery increased when she realized how badly she wanted to rush into his arms, to be held there in safety. This thought only further infuriated her with him—how could he be the one to devastate her internally, and yet the one she wanted comfort from? In an attempt to protect herself from further pain, she became hostile. "I thought I told you to screw off," she said angrily.

He ignored that, stepped a little closer. "I've upset you," he said. He sounded soft, gentle, concerned which should have only increased her rage, but instead, it broke her down.

_Dammit_ she had been determined not to let him do this to her again, but she just couldn't hold it all inside… the anger, the sorrow, the rejected desperation. "Yeah I am," she said, and even though she wanted to shout at him, she could barely manage to speak. "You—you don't kiss me like that,_ touch _me like that and then say it wasn't you." She blinked, her full eyes leaking tears down out onto her cheeks.

He saw the tears and his expression wavered. "Alex, I—"

She shook her head, looking down, trying so hard not to cry out loud. "_God_, Cas! How do you think that makes me _feel_?" She looked at him again and his expression was mournful. How could this man have been so tangled up with her in pure passion, make her feel so amazing and part of something grand and beautiful… then say it wasn't even him? How it made her feel was beyond devastating. "It makes me feel stupid and worthless and ugly."

Castiel became almost angry when she said that, and came even closer, his trench coat brushing up against her knee. "You are _none_ of those things," he said intently, and held her gaze, looked at the girl in front of him, who was suffering at his hand, yet again. He was so torn, so unhappy with himself. Perhaps this was his curse, that anyone who he cared for so deeply would only be hurt by him. And even though he knew the future was grim for them, _her_, he couldn't keep on with the charade, with this choice. He just couldn't. It wasn't right. He grasped her gently there at the elbow and prepared to make his confession, even though the heart of his vessel hammered, his stomach turned, and he felt an unhinged sense of fear that telling her this would offset events he couldn't control, would make her hate him, would repulse her from him completely. But with Alex standing there in front of him looking heartbroken and in pain, he knew he had to do this. So he did.

Hesitating, Cas began. "I lied to you, Alex. It wasn't Jimmy who…" he stopped here, looked down, trying to summon the courage. There was no turning back. "It wasn't Jimmy who... desired you that way," he said, and Alex went completely still. Castiel's eyes slid up to hers. "It was me."

Her jaw was slack, she looked like she couldn't believe it. "W-what?"

"_I_… wanted…" he didn't seem to know how to say it, then almost helplessly, settled on, "you."

She continued to stare at him, seeming too shocked to know how to react. She began to shake her head in stuttering confusion. "But...why did you lie?"

Cas withdrew from her slightly, ashamed, and unsure how she could not be angry with him yet. He deserved her anger and wrath and hatred. "I thought—I'm not entirely sure what I thought." It was an honest answer, because Cas was questioning his motivations and logic very closely now—they seemed unsound and faulty, and also ineffective. "Perhaps that I was keeping you safe," he said. And swallowed. This truly was the point of no return. He looked down. "From myself."

"Safe from you?" she asked, sounding like that was a foreign concept. And Castiel felt another pang of regret. He had explained this to her, the forbidden nature of romantic angel and human relationships, the danger therein. Only, she didn't remember it. He had taken that from her. "It's… hard to explain," he said guiltily.

She looked at him mistrustfully. "_Try_."

It was halfway between a plea and a command, and Castiel found himself suddenly faced with another choice: lie more to cover it up, leave and avoid the truth… or be honest and end the deception now. He didn't allow himself enough time to choose the coward's way out. "Anna showed me the future," he said. "Before we went back to 1978. I saw the Croatoan virus, Lucifer using Sam. Dean… burnt and broken." Alex didn't look very disconcerted. Dean had told Cas about that and she was aware… so this wasn't news to her. But what he said next, she hadn't known. "And… I saw us," Cas said, barely able to look at her. "What you and I became."

There was a short silence of bated breath—Alex was stunned speechless, Castiel was remembering what he saw. "I saw you _die_," he told her, and the pain at the memory of the image seeped into his voice and face. "It happened because of _me_."

Alex frowned, at a small loss. "But… but Dean… he changed it, didn't he? When he brought Sam back in, found the Colt. He says he changed that future."

Cas let out a heavy, troubled breath. "No. I don't think he has, Alex," he paused. "_I_ have to change it. I can't let Lucifer take Sam or…" he trailed off, then looked at her sorrowfully, "any of it."

"Any of it?" She looked at him, hurt, confused. "I don't understand…" she looked at him in despair. Just like the last time he'd told her that they couldn't do this. Wrecked inside, Castiel realized what he had to do. He didn't want to. He was afraid of what she would think of him, but he had made up his mind and he looked at her sadly, reached for her.

"What are you doing?" she asked apprehensively, looking at his two fingers coming to the side of her forehead. She didn't move away or attempt to dodge his touch though.

Cas paused, looked at her directly in the eye. "I took something from you," he said gravely. "I'm giving it back."

"Wha—" Alex started, but his fingers touched her skin, and suddenly, she remembered it like she'd never forgotten at all.

_The night before Carthage. Reaching out, touching Cas's hand. Him looking at her openly, fully, longingly. Sam interrupting them. Alex freaking out and fleeing to the panic room. _

_Cas coming after her, asking why she'd done that, why she'd touched his hand. She'd lied, said she didn't know—afraid of being rejected. But he'd pressed. He hadn't let it go. He had seemed desperate for an answer and he'd refused to leave her until she answered him. And the alcohol, the idea that her life might end the next day had given her some kind of bravery and she remembered asking him, fumblingly, if he had feelings for her. _

_His answer? "The truth is… I think about you much more than I should."_

_Hearing that had stunned her, had elated her, had scared her all at the same time. "Me too," she'd said, unable to believe the moment. _

_But then it had all faded away when he said "we can't." And she _heard _him explain that angels and humans weren't allowed to be together, that it was forbidden and volatile… she'd heard it but hadn't understood how it was fair or right because she wanted a chance, just a chance to be with him because how she felt wasn't going to go away. _

_And he'd turned to leave, but she hadn't let him, she'd seen a sliver of hope and had clung to it, but he'd become strained, then had tried to intimidate her, to frighten her away. He'd grabbed her close, trying to scare her. But there in his arms, feeling his heart hammering through his coat and against her chest, she'd been a lost cause—she'd seen it—literally seen the shift in his eyes from determination to fear, to desire and conflict. She could see him fighting himself, but he lost. He'd kissed her then, so sweetly and earnestly at first, before the kiss deepened into something more fervent and searching. And maybe it become too much for him, because he'd pulled back, shaken up. _

_She remembered that when he pulled away, he had been panicked, been shocked, telling her he shouldn't have done that, that it had been a mistake. And she'd been crushed. _Crushed._ And then when he'd realized he hurt her—his expression had changed, for a long moment he'd just looked at her. Then seemed to decide something. He'd reached for her, she'd asked what he was doing. "Making this right," was the answer, and she'd known suddenly. That he was going to take this memory from her. "Cas, _no_!" she exclaimed. "I have to," he said, agonized as she struggled against him, and he looked at her, sadly. "I am much stronger than you, Alex." But Alex struggled still. _Please don't take this one beautiful thing from me_, her heart had cried out, even as out loud she begged him, "please, no, Cas, don't do this!"_

_He'd looked into her eyes, and she knew he meant it when he said, "I'm sorry." _

_But he took it from her anyway._

The memory rushed into her mind in just a couple seconds, and Alex blinked a few times, stunned, then looking at Cas, completely overcome. He looked grim and resigned, ready to receive her wrath. But all she could do was drop her eyes away, stare blankly at the space in front of her unseeingly, trying to figure out how she felt about this. He'd kissed her, and if possible, with more conviction and feeling than the 2014 Castiel had kissed her with—and that had been... a_ lot_. That kiss in the panic room had revealed more than words could ever say. No wonder he'd taken it away. He couldn't lie to cover it up, the unspoken things she now knew that he kept from her. Her eyes flicked up again to his. She knew now. She _knew_.

At her silence, at her speechlessness, he was puzzled, apprehensive. "Aren't you... angry with me?" he asked her, seeming somewhere between disbelief and almost disappointment.

"Well _yeah_ but…" she replied automatically, then trailed off. _Angry_? Angry. That wasn't the right word. Alex looked at him and saw a man—an angel—who felt like everything rested on him, and more than that, her entire life and wellbeing. And maybe that's what heaven said a guardian angel had to shoulder, but in her opinion, heaven was full of a bunch of jackasses and they needed to re-write the rule book. Especially when it caused Cas so much pain, so much confusion. But he wasn't even her guardian angel because of heaven's orders anymore. No. He'd clearly chosen long ago to be her protector of his own free will, despite what heaven said either way. And that was why she wasn't so much angry as she was just_ torn_.

She got it, she did—that he took the memory for a variety of reasons, that he believed he was doing the right thing. Because he thought them being together was the reason why she died in the future. Because he told her they couldn't be together and it had wounded her and he hadn't wanted her to have to deal with more pain. Because he was afraid of it, of the thought of them being together. So was she, honestly. No, she wasn't angry. She was… relieved. Because she had been _right_ about him and she_ wasn't _crazy and now the dreams about the panic room _made sense_ and hell yeah Castiel was in for the ass-kicking of his life for pulling that shit but right now…? Right now she was just _reeling_—this angel cared for her, more than he was willing to admit, and this just proved that—but he had also clearly said they couldn't be together. Herein laid the difficult feelings and the great sadness. She gently grasped his upper arms, sought his gaze as he waited for her to reply.

"Cas I—yes I was hurt. It… it hit me hard." She paused. "But… I mean, we could have made that decision _together._" She shook her head, mournful, unable to believe what she was saying. "To walk away from whatever this is between us." Her eyes fell away from him. "If that's what had to happen."

His eyes flicked up to hers, and they were anguished. "What's between us is cursed." His statement was like a ton of bricks. "All I ever do... is hurt you. I damage you. I _kill _you in the end."

At that comment about him literally killing her, Alex looked at him a little oddly. "Aren't you being a little overly dramatic?"

"No. I saw it, Alex." Cas was deadly serious, and withdrew from her, troubled. "You were infected with the virus with me right there beside you. I didn't save you from being bitten and... and I… you begged me to… with a _gun_… before you could turn…" he looked to his left, expression sickened. "And I did it. With the gun." He paused heavily. "And there was… a… we had..." he trailed off, shook his head, decided again whatever he'd been about to say. Alex was listening, the picture of shock. He looked back at her intensely. "I won't allow this to happen. It's my task to protect you. _Preserve_ your life, not _destroy _it."

Even though he looked terrified, like he'd seen some horrifying crap—even though he was telling her about her brutal death in the future where he was forced to shoot her to death—it seemed so far away, so unthinkable that Alex couldn't quite identify with Castiel's horrified concern. "You told Dean once that all roads led to the same destination," she pointed out hesitantly. "And every time we've tried to change the future before… it's never worked." It was dismal of her, but realistic. Dean hadn't been able to stop Azazel from killing mom. They hadn't been able to stop Lucifer from rising.

Cas looked even more intent, even more convicted. "I have to try. I won't risk your life."

_What_ life? She didn't expect to live long anyway, she never had—and honestly if she had to live the rest of her life without Cas, she would _rather _die. Alex struggled to find words, her mind a tornado, the walls of her emotions weakening, threatening to break down. Everything they'd shared so far… everything between them… it was too important and too valuable to just drop and walk away from. This angel had been her first real friend outside of her brothers. He was the one who had given her a voice and life and a part of himself. He'd been her first kiss, the first and only person who had ever touched her intimately, who had ever made her feel like she was beautiful. The only person to inspire such heartfelt longings beyond the physical. The one who had died for her once and would die for her again. Who else in the entire world could ever, ever compare, even a little bit?

And she had no idea what kind of relationship they would have or how it would work, none of that but… the thought that_ they couldn't _was unfair and overwhelming, everything opposite of what she wanted.

"So you're saying…" she trailed off. Gathered herself, wishing that she would say this and he would reprove her, say she'd misunderstood. "That we can't."

Their eyes met.

"Yes." he said. "That's what I'm saying." His reply sounded quietly devastated.

She felt her pulse speeding up, her entire body buzzing with nerves and with grief. _No_—everything inside of her begged _no_, because she didn't _want_ to just give up. She _couldn't_. "But Cas—" she moved toward him, he wasn't far. "I don't _wanna_ walk away from this," she admitted, almost on the verge of tears again. And then she asked the question that left her completely vulnerable to getting hurt again. Because she had to know, once and for all. "Do… do _you_?"

Her question seemed to stir something inside of him, something he visibly fought. Something that made his jaw tighten and his mouth move briefly and his forehead tense up. He looked at war within himself, and for a minute, Alex thought he was going to turn from her and literally walk away. _Please, please don't, _she thought to herself. Then his expression softened. He seemed to give up or give in, push aside himself for a moment.

"_No_," he said brokenly, conflicted. He reached out and touched her gently underneath her jaw, his thumb resting over the middle of her chin—his eyes dark and holding so many unspoken things, but most of all, a tenderness, affection. Her heart jumped inside her chest and he shook his head just slightly, seemingly helpless. "I don't." His hand swept back, tracing her jaw, resting against the side of her neck as he closed the distance between them, pressing his lips to hers softly, fervently. Alex melted into him, feeling Cas's hand now gently cradling the side of her head. She didn't know how it was possible for a kiss to transcend so many thoughts and feelings—helplessly, her hand came to rest against his face, palm against the scruff of his jaw, fingers curling into the hair at the side of his head. Warmth spread throughout her entire body, her pain was temporarily forgotten. His mouth was hesitant and shy almost, but searching and earnest, and together they found a deeper, slower kiss than they had ever shared before—a kiss that was unsure and desperate, open and undisguised at the same time as it was guarded and restrained. Maybe they both knew they shouldn't, but neither could help it. Maybe it was a mistake, they probably shouldn't have, but there was no turning back. Even without a spell, they couldn't find it within themselves to resist each other.

It was a kiss that said_ I don't know what's going to happen next. But I need you all the same. _The kiss was deepening and becoming more passionate, mutually. It didn't need to make sense. Alex wanted him—needed him—desperately. One of his arms was around her waist and tightened just slightly—he was being so delicate with her, obviously still torn up about the way he'd physically harmed her just a little awhile ago, doing the same thing... kissing. Except this was different. They weren't gale force driven to destruction and harm, they were just two people who desperately wanted each other and _needed this_, and couldn't handle the reality that they shouldn't be together.

"My my," came a low, velvet voice. "Am I interrupting something?"

Alex and Cas pulled apart fast, startled at the sudden intrusion, because they hadn't heard anyone walk up. In front of them, smiling slyly—"Crowley," Castiel said lowly, eyes narrowing. He immediately, protectively stepped in front of Alex, putting himself between the demon and herself.

Crowley chuckled, giving the impression of casual pleasantry. "Castiel, I presume… we haven't yet had the pleasure." Crowley glanced at Alex, then back at Cas, seeming pleased. "And dear me, if the rumors about the two of you aren't true."

_Rumors? What rumors?_ Castiel maintained a hostile expression. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

Crowley shrugged, took a couple steps to his left, shot Cas a coy glance. "Just popped in for a quick visit with littlest Winchester."

Bristling, Cas didn't take his eyes off of Crowley for a minute, took one step closer to the demon. "What could_ you _possibly want with her?"

Crowley had stopped, and he stood with his hands in his pockets, an overly concerned look on his face as he peered at Alex where she stood behind Cas. "Dear me, Alex love, you're not looking too well—guardian angel fall down on the job today?" his expression changed and he looked pleased with himself again. "Oh, that's right... _he's_ the one who did that to you." He made a tsk sound. "Domestic violence, such a shame."

Cas's expression fell completely in shock.

"Screw off, Crowley," Alex said and Crowley just smiled at her. "But you and I have things to discuss, remember?"

Cas looked back at Alex questioningly, then at Crowley. His expression was dark again, murderous. "What _things_, Crowley?"

Crowley's maddening smile remained, he wiggled his eyebrows once, clearly enjoying the power play. "That's for me to know, mate."

Castiel strode across the remaining three feet between them and grabbed Crowley roughly, threateningly, by the front of his suit jacket. "You won't _touch_ her."

"What, only_ you_ get to do that?" Crowley asked, eyes glinting, completely apathetic to Castiel's show of aggression. His voice lowered a little bit. "Tell me, Castiel… did you like it? Batting her around like that? If I didn't know any better I'd say the girl picked a boyfriend a little too much like Daddy dearest."

That comment touched a raw nerve Cas hadn't even known existed and in a sudden fit of rage and anger, Cas moved to slam Crowley to the ground—but the demon vanished out of his grasp, reappeared beside Castiel, a few feet off, out of reach. "_Ah-ah_!" Crowley chided, then straightened his jacket. "Just had this dry cleaned. No horseplay for me right now, thanks."

Castiel now held his angel blade in his hand, and looked at Crowley dangerously, pointedly. Crowley's eyes slid to the blade, his eyebrows raised—he looked at Cas, then his eyes slid to Alex, who was standing beside a junked car, leaning heavily onto it with one hand. "Funny, that." Crowley looked at Cas with a fascinated, superior little smile on his face. "Haven't you heard gambling's a sin, choir boy? I'm surprised you're willing to bet her life."

"What do you mean?" Cas asked darkly.

"Just _look _at yourself, angel wings—I'm not the one here who's a danger to her." Crowley's smile twitched just a little. "_That _would be _you_. Falling right into step to dance the same old song…" he trailed off meaningfully, seeming to suppose they would know what he meant.

At their confused looks, Crowley sighed, rolled his eyes. "You know the one—goes a little something like Lucifer coming over to Sam Winchester's for a stay, never leaving? Dean going off the deep end? Cas here a real boy? Alex the tragic victim of gun violence?" More shocked silence and Crowley grew impatient, snarky. "Yes _yes_, I've seen the future, too, the whole bloody thing—" he paused, pretended to be introspective. "I laughed, I cried, I learned about myself." He smiled, eyes crinkling pleasantly, only it wasn't pleasant.

At the lack of reaction he got from Alex and Cas, he seemed to tire of the act, momentarily. "Look—I don't want it to happen, either, for different reasons though. My kind needs to _survive_. Couldn't give a rip if _you two _live or die, but… still. The irony's not lost on me." He gave them sly looks again. "After all, I saw the show you two were putting on just a couple tics back. _Riveting _stuff." He chuckled.

Cas didn't respond to anything Crowley had just said, just darkened again. "Leave. _Now_." His jaw tightened. "Or I lay you to waste."

Crowley almost smiled seductively at Castiel at that point. "Mm. I like it when you get all assertive with me." He looked at Alex, then back at Cas. His expression was challenging, self-assured, amused. And the demon disappeared.

Cas looked around intently, for any sign of Crowley as he went back to Alex, who was still leaning onto the car, looking unsettled. "What did he mean, he had things to discuss with you?" Cas asked, deeply concerned.

Alex looked at him in the eye and without even thinking, lied. "I don't know." Now she was the one keeping secrets.

He didn't catch her in the lie, he was still looking around them, appraising the immediate area, his blade still in hand. "I don't like this. How did he know where you were?"

Bobby's address wasn't exactly a secret, and the outside wasn't warded... but Cas was right. It was disconcerting. He looked at her finally, and it was hard to really face everything they had been through together today. He seemed to have similar thoughts, because his expression changed slightly, became more doubtful and introspective. His jaw was tense. "As much as I don't want to admit it… Crowley is right. I—I'm gambling with your life." He paused heavily. "Every time I… give in to my feelings… it's just endangering you."

"But—" she began to protest.

"No, Alex," he said with dark, resigned finality, a voice lacking the emotional depth it had held a minute ago. It was unsettling how quickly he'd changed from emotive to emotionless. "We can't."

He touched her on the shoulder, and they were suddenly inside Bobby's house, where it was dark and quiet, except for the sound of Sam's muffled shouts downstairs. Startled by the sudden change, Alex blinked rapidly, looked around to orient herself, not sure why he'd done that.

"Stay inside, where the demon warding is," Cas told her. And he disappeared without another word, without any warning whatsoever. Startled, Alex waited a couple seconds—he hadn't just left like that... had he? "Cas? Cas!" Alex stood there a second, waiting for him to reappear. "Come back!"

He didn't.

* * *

**Two Days Later**

Outside, drunk as hell and pissed at the world, Alex laid on the hood of the Impala, staring up at the night sky. Everything was spinning and she felt sick. She sat up, wished Dean would come out here and get onto her, cuss her out, fight with her. Anything to distract her from the hopeless bullshit she was dealing with internally. Cas had disappeared and wasn't answering any of her calls—after Crowley had shown up, it had just been over apparently, because she hadn't heard from him since... this was her inspiration for her current drunken state. The pain of longing for him, of actually having had these moments of closeness with him—and then nothing. _Nothing_. No explanation and no resolution. Just more uncertainty and heartbreak. And tears. There had been a mortifying amount of tears. Dean, when he'd caught her crying, had thought it was because of Sam.

Sam was in the middle of crazy demon blood withdrawals. Dean was mostly avoiding her, being totally standoffish and depressed. Alex slid off the Impala hood and into an uneven standing position, picking up the discarded whiskey bottle from where she'd dropped it on the gravel in the salvage yard. She tried to get a couple last drops out—but it was empty. Infuriated, she threw it with a loud shout, as far as she could... which wasn't far because she was wobbly and uncoordinated. Miserable, she began sobbing—she couldn't even _throw_ things right!

"Little old for temper tantrums though, aren't we?"

Alex whirled, stumbled, and then made a face. "Ohh, just _great_. Just who I wanted to f_riggin' _see."

"Miss me, darling?" Crowley asked her, swaggering over to her casually. She hated this dude so much right now, well, always, but right now especially. He was getting cocky too, showing up in the _salvage yard_ now?

"No," she said, and jerkily stumbled to him, trying to be threatening. "I didn't miss you… now get your skanky demon ass outta my face before I—"

He winced a little. "Before you what, dear? Regurgitate your stomach matter onto me?" He lightly touched her on the fronts of her shoulders with the tips of his fingers and pushed away. "Think I'll pass."

She tried to think of something cutting or mean to say, but her mind felt so garbled. "You suck," she settled on slurringly, then realized how stupid that comeback was. Crowley let it go, even though he made an unimpressed 'really?' face.

"Anyway," Crowley commented dryly. "Thought anymore about what I told you, love?"

Alex looked at him, expression blank. About her having something to do with killing Lucifer? Yes, she hadn't stopped thinking about it since he'd told her—and in fact, Cupid had mentioned, almost too casually to take to heart that she needed to be born as well as Sam and Dean. Did that mean something? Well, if it did, she wasn't about to tell this jackass any of that. "_No_."

The corner of his mouth tugged upwards just slightly, knowingly. "It's permeated your every waking thought, hasn't it." His voice was dark velvet. "Well, I've found some interesting factoids since our first little chat." He fixed her with a coy gaze. "Ever heard the one about a pure soul being able to destroy evil from the inside?"

Alex tried not to look surprised that he'd found that, the same thing she'd found recurring through so many religions and myths. "Uh, _no_."

"_Right_. Well. Lucy's evil, yeah? And guess who's the pure soul who can apparently destroy him?"

Alex stared at him hard, waiting for him to say, then when he kept just looking at her, she felt her mouth hang open stupidly. He meant _her_? "Are you _kidding me_." Alex squinted at him, not even incredulous… at the point of laughter. "_Buddy_. I am _not _a pure soul." She laughed bitterly, shook her head, sighed in over-amusement.

Crowley seemed to have expected as much, shook his head faintly. "Humans. You have higher standards than the rest of us. See, a pure soul doesn't mean what you think. It has nothing to do with hail Mary's or piety, not really." He grinned now. "A pure soul is three things. One, it's human." He pointed at her. "_Check_. Two, it must be whole, not diced up to bits or somesuch. _Check_. Three... and this is my favorite... the soul must belong to a virgin." Alex's face fell. "_Check_." Crowley's smile was positively devilish. "Although you came kind of close a couple days ago to being kicked out of _that_ club, aye?"

Alex glared at him vengefully, wishing she had the demon knife with her. "How the _fuck_ do you hell monkeys always know all this shit about my life?"

Crowley just smiled slyly. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Yes you asshole, that's _why_ I _asked_."

"_Heavens_ you get belligerent when you're drunk," Crowley commented mildly, then waved a hand in dismissal. "You're missing the point. You've got a pure soul. You're a Winchester. It's painfully obvious that there's something to this."

Alex tried to poke him in the chest with her index finger, but missed and got the top of his shoulder instead. "You know, I have a damn good mind to tell my brothers you've been stalking me, Crowley." She chuckled, a slurred sound. "You won't like them when they're pissed, and trust me, I tell them you've been coming around and oh-_ho_ there's_ hell to pay_ for you my friend."

Crowley raised his eyebrows challengingly. "What? Moosey Sam gonna get me? He's not even on two legs. And Dean. Ah, _Dean_." Crowley clasped his hands behind his back, took a few steps to his right. "Now Alexandra, I know you won't tell them a thing. We both know that." He looked at her conspiratorially. "You tell them there's a possibility that you're involved in this whole end-of-the-world shindig... and they never let you out of the house again." He chuckled. "Ironic, isn't it? They tell you that you're their equal, that you're a great hunter… but at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words."

He shot her an appraising glance. "Haven't you ever wondered why they're so protective of you? Hell, why angel boy is so protective of you? Because they perceive you as incapable and weak. They don't think you should make your own decisions. _Well_. I do."

Alex looked at him mistrustfully, fighting the desire to actually listen to him, to agree with him. "You just want me to kill Satan for you so you can keep the demon party going," she said, then made a 'pfft' sound and rolled her eyes. "Well joke's on you, jackass. I'm not part of it. Your rumors are _wrong, _so go find someone else to piss off."

Crowley, however, just gave her a deeply unnerving look, stepped closer. "Now, now. I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you."

"Whatever, Crowley," Alex said. "Now _fuck off_." She glanced him up and down, finally coming up with a good insult. "By the way, your stupid suit is tacky as hell."

"This is _Armani_," Crowley said, affronted.

Alex smirked at his reaction, and he seemed to realize himself, and was suddenly all pleasant, cool smiles again, passively aggressively tearing her down. "No worries, pet. I understand. Upset about the boyfriend, aren't you? He never calls, never visits, never tells you how he feels anymore..." he sighed with mock sadness, then he smiled again. "Sad day when the only one on your side is a demon in a tacky suit, aye?"

She opened her mouth to cuss him out again, but he disappeared, leaving a shaken, pissed, and abysmally wasted Alex behind. She would drunkenly mull these things over for the next few minutes, try to stumble into the house but pass out on the stairs. She would then be found by Dean who would sadly pick her up, haul her inside, and reflect, yet again, on the unending times he'd failed his brother and sister alike, and how close to just being_ done _with _everything_ he was.

Because nothing was changing, nothing was getting better. Everything was going to hell, and every day was just another damn failure on his part.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ Hello everyone! Ugh feelings... my feelings! I had a horrible week and Calex was my blissful escape *sighs happily* I hope maybe this chapter brought you some happiness like it brought me...eh maybe not cuz of the insane levels of angst and CROWLEY WHAT  
_

_Umm also okay can I just OMGSLKDJSLKDJ about the finale that just aired a few days ago OMG OMG OMG? REALLY? I AM SOOO EXCITED AND SAD AND EVERY FEELING EVER YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS FOR CALEX OMG PERFECTION UGH. OTP FOREVER!_


	28. Bullets in the Gun

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 28 / Bullets in the Gun

"_He went down down down… __and the devil called him by name."_  
- Tom Waits

* * *

**Four Years Ago**

"Dean, it's _me_," John Winchester protested, sounding sincere, confused, betrayed. He stood completely still, stared at his son, who was currently holding him at gunpoint.

"I know my dad better than anyone," Dean growled back, the colt steady and unwavering in his grip, his expression a fierce glare. "And you ain't him."

"The hell's gotten into you?" John asked in disbelief.

"I could ask you the same thing," Dean said menacingly, not backing down and not fooled for a second. "Stay back."

Sam returned at that very moment—he'd been checking the protective salt lines he'd made in the abandoned old shack they'd holed up in. Sam's face was bruised and bloody, one eye was swollen up from the fight he'd had with a demon earlier that day. "Dean!" Shocked at what he was seeing, Sam looked between the two of them, trying to make sense of it. "What the hell's going on?"

Behind Sam, Alex emerged from further back in the house, and her expression dropped, matching Sam's almost instantaneously. She looked similar to Sam—the same demon who had beat Sam to a pulp had flung her into the side of a car and the entire left side of her face was a mess, her lip was cracked and bloody, her dark green jacket was ripped in the front. Her silver whistle glinted up from where it laid against her shirt. At the sight of her in the same room with Dad who _wasn't Dad_, Dean edged closer to his siblings, keeping the gun trained steadily on their father.

"Your brother's lost his mind," John told Sam darkly, to which Dean immediately shook his head. "He's not Dad," he insisted, fighting fear and panic.

"_What_?" Sam asked, as if his brother had suggested the unthinkable. "I think he's possessed," Dean said, his voice beginning to waver in distress and disbelief and _how could he have been so stupid?_ "I think he's been possessed since we rescued him."

"Don't listen to him, Sammy," John said, relatively calm, commanding, but Sam hesitated, unsure now, suspicious. "Dean, how do you know?" he asked his older brother. Almost hiding behind her twin's larger form, Alex was looking at their father in disbelief and mistrust.

"He's... he's _different_," Dean managed, barely able to think straight.

"We don't have_ time_ for this," John said urgently, sounding every bit like their father, making it hard to figure out if Dean was telling the truth or not. "Sam, Alex, you wanna kill this demon, you've gotta _trust me_."

Sam looked at Dean, then their dad, and there was a long moment of silence. Alex's fingers tightened on Sam's arm, she moved toward Dean just slightly, and John saw it. "_Sam_," John appealed in a soft and pleading tone of voice none of them had ever heard him use.

Sam looked again at Dean, who was fighting to keep his composure, fighting not to break down. And that seemed to convince him. "No," he told his dad, or whoever it was. "_No_."

"Fine," John said, barely whispering, looking defeated and disappointed in his children, who were all standing in a huddle near each other. "The three of you are so sure, go ahead." He almost looked as if he were fighting tears now. "Kill me." He looked between the three of them for a moment longer, then bowed his head, waited as Dean held the gun steady… but Dean didn't pull the trigger—the colt would kill the demon and Dad, too—and frozen, he just stood there, the gun trained on Dad uselessly. Alex looked at Dean in abject horror and confusion and Sam stood stock still, holding his breath. They were all hoping Dean was wrong. Hoping it was Dad in front of them, not a demon.

But Dean was right.

"I thought so," John said, but his voice had gotten ominously deeper, there was a little smile on his lips—and he looked back up and his eyes were yellow. Their worst fears were realized—it was the yellow-eyed demon. And before any of them could react, they went flying separate ways, thrown up against three different walls to remain pinned there helplessly. The colt clattered to the floor out of Dean's grip, and John—the demon—bent and casually picked it up. "What a pain in the ass this thing's been," he muttered.

Struggling against the demonic hold that pinned him to the wall, Sam stared at the yellow-eyed demon hatefully, recognizing the demon as the one who had killed their mother and ruined all of their lives. "It's _you_, isn't it?" Sam's expression was quiet, deadly. The demon just smiled. "We've been looking for you for a long time," Sam said through clenched teeth.

"Well, you found me," the demon said, almost amused. "But the holy water…" Sam said, confused and thinking back to when they'd tested him just to be safe.

"You think something like _that_ works on something like _me_?" the demon asked with a coy smile, and growing angrier, Sam tried to fight the invisible hold, tried to break free, only to be pushed harder into the wall. A frustrated sound escaped from his throat and he leveled the demon with a death glare. "I am gonna _kill _you!" he roared. The demon didn't bat an eye. "Oh—that'd be a neat trick. In fact—" he put the colt down on the old wooden table in the middle of the room, baiting Sam. "Here. Make the gun float to you there, psychic boy."

Sam looked at the gun but nothing happened and the demon chuckled lowly, turned his sights onto Alex, who was pinned at the furthest end of the room. She saw him looking at her and went still, watched his approach with a razor-like expression. He only smiled, an eyebrow lifting almost imperceptibly. "What, don't _you_ have some angry things to say to me, too?" he asked, then paused. "Oh—" he pretended to think of something, then that sly, triumphant smile returned. "That's right. Can't talk, can you?" He stepped closer to her, took a dark lock of hair off her shoulder, looked at it with some kind of fascination there in between his fingers. He made a thoughtful hmm sound and Alex struggled, her breathing grew frantic and strained as she fought harder, trying to get free.

"Leave her alone," Dean said, voice wavering helplessly. He was ignored.

"Daddy's darkest secret." The demon said, looking Alex in the eyes. "He doesn't like to tell anyone about you. His freak, mute kid." He touched the side of her hair, petted her almost, trailed his hand to her neck, ran his thumb across the delicate skin there. She tried to shrink away, face twisted in revulsion. "But _I_ don't think you're that bad," he said, smirking almost. She looked like she'd never heard anything more despicable.

"Hey get the hell away from her!" Dean barked, loudly this time and the demon turned, looked at him over his shoulder. "Or what? You gonna kill me, too?" the demon mocked, looking over at Sam challengingly. Straining against the hold even more than before, Sam looked murderous. The demon let go of Alex.

"Well, this is fun," the demon said, walking over to the window beside Dean. "I could've killed you a hundred times today, but this…" he sighed. "This is worth the wait."

Dean struggled, still pinned to the wall, and the demon looked over at him, smiling just slightly. "Your dad—he's in here with me. Trapped inside his own meat suit. He says 'hi' by the way. He's gonna tear you apart. He's gonna taste the iron in your blood."

"Let him go, or I swear to God—" Dean managed in a trembling voice.

"What? What are you and _God_ gonna do?" The demon asked darkly. "You see, as far as I'm concerned, this is _justice._" He came over to stand in front of Dean, close now. "You know that little exorcism of yours? That was my daughter Meg." He paused. "The one you killed today in the alley? That was my boy Tom. You understand."

"You got to be kidding me." Dean shook his head, struggling to maintain his composure, trying to think of a way to break free and save his siblings, save his dad.

"What? You're the only one that can have a family?" The demon asked cynically. "You destroyed my children. How would you feel if I killed your family?" He paused and slowly, so slowly, a dark smile spread across John's lips. "_Oh_... that's right. I forgot. I _did_." The smile was gone. "And you know, maybe I'm not done yet either." He looked in Alex's direction, then Sam's, who was glaring at him viciously. "You tell me why," Sam demanded acidly. "Why you did it."

"You mean why did I kill Mommy and pretty, little Jess?" The demon almost smirked at that question, turned and faced Dean again. "You know, he never told you this, but Sam was going to ask Jess to marry him. Been shopping for rings and everything. Well, I couldn't have _that_." He turned back to Sam, his smile fading, replaced by an ominous expression. "You want to know why? Because they got in the way."

"In the way of what?" Sam asked suspiciously. The demon backed up a little, almost swaggering. "My plans for you, Sammy. You…" his eyes slid over to Alex, "and all the children like you."

Sam looked over at his twin in dismay, breathless, then looked back at the demon in confusion and horror, disbelief. "She's not part of this," Sam said emphatically, shaking his head.

"Oh, but she is, Sammy," the demon smiled darkly. "And somehow, I think you already knew that." Sam's face fell, scrunching with even more confusion—or was that dread?

"The hell you talking about?" Dean demanded angrily. "It's really none of your concern, Dean," the demon said, sounding short on patience, to which Dean promptly retorted, "Like _hell_ it isn't, asshole."

Rounding on him and coming closer again, the demon leaned closer to Dean, intimidatingly. "You know, you fight and you fight for this family, but the truth is _they don't need you_. Not like you need them. Sam—he's clearly John's favorite. Even when they fight, it's more concern than he's ever shown you."

Dean's jaw clenched tight even as the demon turned and looked at Alex. "Wait." the demon was whispering, feigning thoughtful surprise. "Wait." His chilling smile was back. "How could I forget?" he pretended to be apologetic. "I take it back Dean. _She_ needs you, in fact, sometimes you think it's too much. Sometimes the burden of caring for her threatens to send you over the edge. Mostly because you know you can't keep her safe. Not forever." He was going to Alex again, his voice was dropping lower into more ominous tones. "Not from things like me."

"You did that to her, didn't you?" Dean demanded, trying to get the demon to come back to him, engage with him again. Anything to get the yellow-eyed demon away from his sister. "You made her mute that night in the nursery."

The demon just chuckled, ignored Dean, addressed Alex. "Do you ever get tired of Dean being your mouthpiece? Cuz he doesn't always get it right, does he, Alexandra?" He touched her lips thoughtfully with his fingers and she yanked her head away. The demon grabbed her roughly by the chin, made her look at him. She glared daggers, breathing hard. "Now, now," the demon said. "I'm not going to hurt you. Why would I do that?"

Alex might not have been able to move or get away, but she apparently couldn't hold back her rage—she spat defiantly in the demon's face and he recoiled slightly, growing angry. "You shouldn't have done that," the demon growled acidly, and almost snarling he back-handed her across the face.

"_Hey_!" Dean thundered, enraged and desperate to break free—Sam was straining even harder, turning red with, bellowing with effort.

Wincing, Alex's head was turned to the side and the demon smirked, looking at the brother's reactions, apparently pleased. "This is going to be so much better than I thought," he commented, and looked at Dean, his smile deepening. "Watch _this _trick."

_What the hell?_ Dean wondered, but then Alex's head went back, her mouth open in a silent scream—she began to bleed heavily from her chest.

"Alex! No!" Sam shouted. "Stop!" Dean pleaded, desperate and fighting the hold over him in complete vain.

"Oh, I'm just getting started," the demon said lowly and left Alex to writhe in pain as he walked over to Dean, who suddenly shouted in agony, eyes screwed shut against the sudden violent onset of pain _everywhere_.

"_Dean_!" Sam shouted, even as Dean continued to spasm. He felt warm, wet stuff pouring out of his chest—blood. The pain was so intense, so unbearable—and Alex was still bleeding, still convulsing and he couldn't get to her, couldn't do a damn thing—_God no, this couldn't be how it ended…_ "Dad!" Dean whimpered, panting, "Dad, don't you let it kill us!"

Sam was shouting, trying as hard as he could to get free. Dean felt himself going weak, woozy, the world was becoming dark, there was blood in his mouth, the taste of it revolting—Alex was looking at him through her pain, silently begging him to help her, or maybe that was her wishing she could get free and help _him_. Dean could barely move now, it took everything he had to function at all, but with his last strength he looked up at his father and begged, prayed, hoped against hope that somewhere deep down his dad would hear him. "Dad, _please_," Dean whispered… and then the world went completely dark and silent as he passed out completely.

* * *

The Impala sped down the road in the dead of night, three badly wounded passengers inside as Sam pushed the pedal down all the way, trying to coax as much speed as possible out of the car. He glanced back in the rearview mirror, seeing Dean and Alex slumped against each other, covered in their own blood—his brother was barely conscious, Alex had passed out completely.

"_She's not part of this!" Sam had protested. "Oh, but she is, Sammy," the demon had replied softly, shaking Sam down to his core. "And somehow, I think you already knew that." _Sam's eyes flickered over his twin and he was filled with sickened worry. Dean had asked him what the demon meant as they had gotten into the car—asked why the demon said that about Sam 'knowing' Alex was part of the special children—Sam had lied to Dean's face, said he had no idea… when really, he did. He _did_ think he knew what the demon was talking about—and it was something terrible, dark, something that Sam never wanted to think about or confront. Something he would take with him to his grave. Beside him in the front seat, Dad groaned in pain. Anxiety jumping up about ten points, Sam glanced at him, guilty.

Right after Dean had passed out, Dad had snapped out of it somehow, regained control over the demon's possession—Sam had gotten the colt, Dad had begged him, _commanded _him to shoot him through the heart, kill the demon once and for all. But Sam hadn't been able, he'd frozen—Alex had stumbled over, barely conscious, and Sam thought for a second she was going to try and take the gun from him, shoot Dad and the demon herself—but then the black smoke had poured out of Dad's mouth and it had been too late. Now Sam could feel his father's anger, his disappointment, his judgement. Dad hissed in pain again. "Look, just hold on, alright," Sam said anxiously. "The hospital's only ten minutes away."

Dad looked at him accusingly. "I'm surprised at you, Sammy. Why didn't you kill it? I thought we saw eye-to-eye on this? Killing this demon comes first—before me, before everything."

Sam glanced in the rearview again at his siblings, jaw tight, his entire body tense. "No, sir," he replied firmly despite his nerves. He shook his head. "Not before everything. Look, we've still got the Colt. We still have the one bullet left. We just have to start over, alright?" Sam was trying hard to backpedal, appease his father just a little bit. "I mean, we already found the demon—" Sam was cut off by what happened next.

In the span of two seconds, there was a bright flash of light, the sensation of brutal impact, the realization that they had been hit by something—and then, nothing.

* * *

It had been several days since the accident. Well. It hadn't even _been_ an accident: a black-eyed demon had done it, possessed a semi-truck driver and then smashed the several-ton truck headlong into the side of the Impala, trying, and almost succeeding, to kill them all. It was really a miracle that they had survived, period. Times like this, John could have almost believed what Mary had: that angels were watching over them. Well, maybe not him specifically, but his children? _Maybe_. If angels were real, they would want no business with the likes of him. A man who had ended up here, who had done this to his children, who had focused on one thing—and that one thing hadn't been them.

John was in the basement of the hospital, crouched down and tracing out a devil's trap—the white chalk line stood out starkly against the dark gray concrete floor. He had drawn so many of these that he did it automatically, unthinkingly, even with one of his arms in a sling and useless.

He thought he'd been doing the right thing, raising his kids to know how to kill, how to fight, how to hunt. He thought it would keep them safe, but now he saw that everything he'd ever done had pushed them into danger and trapped them there forever. There was no way out of the life of a hunter except to die. It was with the grandest sense of irony that he realized in his attempts to avenge his wife's murder he'd instead sentenced his children to death.

Grimly John reflected that his choice to make his children part of this fight had been his biggest mistake in life and current circumstances just confirmed that. His oldest son was in a coma upstairs and it didn't look like he would pull through. His daughter was laid up with a broken arm, head trauma and internal bruising among other things. She was refusing to communicate with Sam, upset about Dean—upset about everything. John hadn't gone to see her in her hospital room, not when she was awake, anyway. He couldn't face her right now.

He remembered hitting Alex across the face when he was possessed and screaming internally _stop that, don't touch her!_—but then the demon had slyly replied _what? You've done this before. Why can't I?_ And John had struggled to regain control, because such righteous self hatred and anger had coursed through his veins—the demon was right. There had been times, too many times, when he _had_ flown off the handle and hurt his daughter. He had hit her and shoved her and called her things he shouldn't have—it had been because of the stress, the alcohol, the fatigue—he blamed these things for the times he had smacked his kids around, but deep down below the surface excuses he knew _he_ had done those things. Not the substances, not the circumstances.

But John had changed, or he thought he had—he'd been careful, he'd tried damn hard to control himself—he hadn't hit her or shoved her in nearly two years now. And that was a shit thing to be proud of. Possessed or not, it was so awful that he'd done it again. The look on her face when his hand had struck her. He had forgotten how much that looked wrecked him, how utterly wretched it rendered him. Every time he looked at her, he felt his every failure deep down in his bones.

At least _one_ of his children was unharmed for the most part. Sam was fine, or at least of the four of them, the least damaged. But even if he was _physically_ okay, John knew that Sam despised him for everything, hated him for what had happened, blamed him for this whole mess. And Sam's hatred for John could only be topped by his own self loathing, his own self hatred. He deserved Sam's scorn. Every bit of it. Completely sober for the first time in a long time, John realized as he finished the chalk outline of the devil's trap that he didn't understand why Dean was so loyal to him.

He finished the devil's trap and took out his knife, began to mutter the incantation, preparing himself mentally for what he was about to do. This was risky and maybe stupid, but he saw no other options. He sliced his palm open until blood flowed—lit a match, finished the incantation, dropped the match into the bowl where the flames leapt high, burned bright, the died out. He stood up, looked around, waiting—then a hand grasped his shoulder, turned him roughly. "You conjuring me, John," the man said—and his eyes flashed yellow—John leveled the colt at him. "I'm_ surprised_." A smile came over the demon's face, and two black-eyed demons, a nurse and an orderly, appeared behind him. "I took you for a lot of things," the demon said, almost intrigued and a little amused. "But suicidally reckless... wasn't one of them."

"I could always shoot you," John pointed out. And damn, did he want to. It took everything he had not to pull the trigger and end this abomination right now, finish the job once and for all. But Dean's life hung in the balance.

"You could always miss," the demon replied, and he chuckled darkly. "And you've only got one try, don't cha?" His eyebrows furrowed just slightly. "Did you _really_ think you could trap me?"

There was a long pause. "I don't want to trap you," John said, and he lowered the colt, lowered his defenses, revealed his game plan. "I want to make a deal."

The demon seemed genuinely surprised. "A deal, John? With me?" His eyes narrowed just slightly. He began to slowly pace the circle of chalk where John stood. "It's very unseemly, making deals with devils. How do I know this isn't just another trick?"

"It's no trick," John said evenly, truthfully. "I will give you the colt and the bullet, but you've got to help Dean. You've got to bring him back." He watched the demon closely. His voice softened, giving away his emotions. "And… my daughter. Give her back what I know you took from her. You do that for me, the gun and the bullet are yours."

"Why, John, you're a sentimentalist," the demon said, smiling widely, mockingly. "If only your kids knew how much their daddy _loved them_."

"It's a good trade," John said, keeping his voice low and calm, keeping his emotions out of it. "You care a hell of a lot more about this gun than you do Dean or Alex."

The demon smiled at that, stopped walking, looked at John pointedly. "Funny, I might have said the same to you just a few days ago." His smile faded. "And don't be so sure about that. Dean killed some people who were very special to me. But still, you're right, he isn't much of a threat," the demon conceded, arrogant. "And neither is your other son. Or your very _quiet_ daughter."

"You son of a bitch," John muttered, barely restraining his anger that boiled beneath the surface. "Guilty as charged," the demon said, smiling wickedly. He stepped a little closer, looked at John thoroughly. "You know the truth, right? About Sammy, the other children?"

"Yeah," John admitted balefully, his stomach turning because he wished he _didn't_ know. He felt sick. "I've known for a while."

"Then you know that little Alex was supposed to be one of my special children, too," the demon said, made a regretful little sighing sound as he backed up, turned away a little. John felt every muscle in his body tense as the demon shook his head slightly. "Shame. We had plans for her. _I _had plans for her." He looked back at John in a way that chilled him to his bones. "Who knows. Maybe they'll still work out, I don't know…" John wanted to lunge at the demon, tear him apart with his bare hands.

The demon smirked slightly, turning back to face John fully. "But neither of them know, John, do they? That you know more, _much_ more than you let on. That you've been playing dumb… avoiding facing the facts. Stringing them along all these years, hoping you can change fate..."

John was losing patience and fast. He needed answers or he would lose his temper and use the damn gun. "Can you fix Dean? Can you give Alex her voice back? Yes or _no_."

There was a cocky little smile. "You need to sweeten the pot a little if you want me to help you out, John."

"What more could you want from me?" John demanded angrily. "I don't _have _anything else."

"Of course you do," the demon replied, and the look on his face filled John with uneasy dread. He suddenly flashed a grin. "I'll take the girl."

"_What_?"

The demon looked at John darkly, his former good humor gone in the place of deadly seriousness. "Dean lives. Alex gets her voice back… but she comes with me, no questions asked on your part." The smile was back, the lightness too. "It's just you and your boys like you always wanted."

"The hell would you want with her?" John asked in horror at the suggestion. The demon didn't say, just fixed John with a blood-curdling little smile. John shook his head in abject denial, in barely contained rage. "No—there has to be something else you want."

The demon's eyebrows raised slightly and he paused. "All right. Your life for Dean's. He lives. You die. Alex gets nothing." There was a smug smile on the demon's face, as if he thought he knew which one John would choose. John didn't even have to consider. He stepped a little closer to the demon assertively. "I want to see Dean fixed before you take me. That's the deal."

The demon was silent, blank, surprised. John grew intense. "Don't look so surprised," John said bluntly. "You really think I would let you have my _daughter_?" He stepped even closer, threateningly, his words blazing with anger. "Never. You will never have her in any way, you sick son of a bitch—not you, not any other hell creature, not even the devil himself. Not if I have anything to do with it." He stared at the demon unflinchingly, resolute. "Now are we gonna do this deal or not?"

* * *

"I can't explain it," John could hear the doctor say to Dean on the other side of the wall. "The edema's vanished. The internal contusions are healed. Your vitals are good. You must have some kind of angel watching over you."

"Thanks, doc," he heard Dean reply, and the doctor left, walked past John, who stood outside against the wall, out of their line of sight. It was early morning. The demon had come through on the end of his deal—Dean was alive and well. John heard his boys talking in hushed tones, as he blankly watched the doctor walk down the hall. The single thought echoed in his mind: today he died.

He thought about telling them, he _wanted_ to tell them, but he just couldn't. Not outright. Swept up in end-of-the-line emotions, regrets, longings, John almost thought of just going now without a word to any of them, surrendering to the demon what he'd promised, just letting it end like this. He wasn't sure how he could bear to look at his children and know it was for the last time.

He turned to walk away, but hesitated, listening to Dean's deep rumbling voice and Sam's soothing tenor tones and changed his mind, unable to walk away—but not just for sentimental reasons. Dean had to know.

John took a deep breath and made himself known, stepped into the doorway, knocked on the doorframe, looking at his sons and feeling so much all at once. Dean and Sam looked up at him, vaguely surprised. "How you feeling, dude?" John asked Dean, smiling at him softly.

"Fine, I guess," Dean said, a small smile there at the sight of his dad. "I'm alive, at least."

"That's what matters," John said, returning the smile, the sight of Dean alive and well touching the deepest part of him, overwhelming him with so many thoughts and feelings. He was looking at his son and seeing him when he had been small, bright-eyed, eager, happy and not yet scarred by the world. John cleared his throat, looked around the room glancingly. "Where's—where's your sister?"

Sam, still upset after the argument they'd had yesterday about the demon, was looking at John without a smile. "Asleep in her room. She still isn't feeling too good." Sam replied, sounding distinctly blaming toward John. He paused and looked at his father suspiciously. "Where were you last night?"

John looked at his youngest son silently. If only he knew. "I had some things to take care of," John told him ambiguously, wishing that this once they wouldn't argue and fight. Sam's eyes narrowed. "Well, _that's_ specific," he said, tone bordering on sarcastic.

"Come on, Sam," Dean said, sounding fed up. Sam didn't even look at Dean, just kept his eyes on John. "Did you go after the demon?"

John looked down briefly, shook his head. "No."

"You know, why don't I believe you right now?" Sam asked accusingly, and John finally came fully into the room, looking at his two sons, wishing he could tell them. He was remembering when Sam was young and happy, had trusted him, had run into his arms laughing when he'd gotten home—those days were so long gone that John could barely remember them, almost wondered if he were imagining them completely.

"Can we not fight?" he asked Sam softly. Sam looked utterly bewildered and stunned at the quiet question—John shook his head sadly, almost unable to keep his emotions at bay. "You know, half the time we're fighting, I don't know what we're fighting about. We're just butting heads." John swallowed, tried to keep that faltering smile on his face because if he didn't keep smiling, he'd fall apart. "Sammy, I, I've made some mistakes." God, he had made _millions_. "But I've always done the best I could," John said. The statement felt like a complete lie—he almost took it back. Almost. Defeated, he looked at his son pleadingly, needing mercy where he didn't deserve it. "I just don't want to fight anymore, okay?"

Sam looked beside himself, peering into his father's face with quickly-increasing worry. "Dad... are you all right?" he asked apprehensively, and John just kept smiling, kept lying. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm just a little tired." He paused, suppressing his pain, holding himself together just a little longer, trying not to think about what he knew about Sam, the dark secrets he held inside. "Hey, son, would you, uh, would you mind getting me a cup of caffeine?"

Sam hesitated. "Yeah. Yeah, sure..." he looked at John several more times but left, still frowning in confusion. John watched him go sadly, eyes lingering on Sam's retreating lanky form.

Dean's voice brought him back to the hospital room. "What is it?" he asked softly, and John tore his gaze away from his younger son to look at his older one. Dean looked so worried and burdened as he stared up at him from where he was propped in the hospital bed. John was overcome with regret and he shook his head, still seeing Dean when he was younger, a little boy. "You know, when you were a kid... I'd come home from a hunt, and after what I'd seen, I'd be... I'd be wrecked. And you, you'd come up to me and you—you'd put your hand on my shoulder and you'd look me in the eye and you'd…" John struggled against tears as he remembered, "you'd say 'It's okay, Dad.'" He paused, and couldn't stop himself. He was losing control of his emotions, and his tears were audible in his shaking voice. "Dean, I'm _sorry_."

Dean stared at his dad in quiet shock. "What?"

John tried to smile through the tears, but the smile was faltering. This apology was years and years overdue. "You shouldn't have had to say that to me, I should have been saying that to you. You know, I put—I put too much on your shoulders, I made you grow up too fast. You took care of Sammy, you took care of Alex, you took care of me. I should have been the one who took care of everyone. I wasn't." John paused somberly, almost talking out loud now, not even to Dean. "I messed you kids up good. I wish…" he trailed off, shook his head. The things he wished... they outnumbered the stars in the sky right now and naming any of them was pointless. Wishing didn't change anything, and maybe his life was a joke but at least he was leaving behind three young people who might do it better than he had.

He looked at Dean, welling up with the sudden onset of pride, because he realized so fully and completely right now that his son was a man worth being proud of. John didn't think he had much to do with the man Dean had grown into, but he was still proud and he had to let him know all the same. "Dean... you were all the man I never was. I just want you to know that I am _so_ proud of you."

Dean, who had been taking it all in silently, looked at John incredulously, faltered. "This really you talking?"

"Yeah, it's really me," John confirmed, and came closer to his son, who looked almost fearful at this point. "Why are you saying this stuff, Dad?"

John looked at Dean through blurry, tear-filled eyes. "I want you to watch out for your brother and sister, okay?"

"Yeah, Dad, you know I will," Dean said, voice shaking. "You're scaring me."

"Don't be scared, Dean. Just listen." John leaned closer, growing serious, quiet, his voice low whisper. "You have to save Sammy. From himself, from what that demon did to him. And if you can't save him—Dean, you'll have to kill him." Dean drew back, eyes wide in shock. John wasn't done. He grew even more sickened than before. "And Dean, your sister… keep her safe. From Sam."

"From _Sam_?" Dean protested, more and more disturbed and terrified by the second.

John looked at Dean sadly, wishing he had more time. Because yet again, he was leaving too much on Dean's shoulders. "Just trust me son."

Dean stared, aghast. "Dad—I don't—" he almost pleaded, eyes wide, begging John for a reason, an explanation. "What are you_ talking _about? What did the demon say to you?"

John looked at his oldest, knowing he_ couldn't_ explain it, not in the time he had left. So he lied again, put on a reassuring smile. "We'll talk about this later, son. Get your rest. I'll see you in a little while." And John retreated, not giving his son a chance to reply.

Dean watched his dad leave in shellshocked silence and John smiled through the pain at his boy one last time, then turned and walked away, closing his eyes and standing in the middle of the hospital hallway. Momentarily, he opened his eyes and they immediately went to his left, where Alex's door was open. He hesitated, his chest clenching. And slowly, he approached.

John lingered in the open doorway, looking at his daughter. She was on her side and sleeping deeply, her dark and messy hair a cloud around her head, her knees pulled up toward her chest, her hands underneath the side of her face. She'd always slept like that, difference was until she'd been six, she'd been snuggled up like that into Dean's side—Dean slept on his back, an arm under his head—and Sam would always be on the other side of Alex, his back to her back, his arms crossed and mouth open widely. They'd slept like that until John insisted they stop the 'little kid bullshit' and start sleeping separate. He'd still caught them like that a few times afterward, and it had infuriated him. _Why?_ Why had that stuff left him so enraged? Maybe because his kids were better parents to each other than he ever was. Maybe it's because he was worried that depending on each other would make them weak. Maybe it's because for years _everything _had made him angry and crazy. Everything.

John came into the room slowly, hesitantly, looking down at his daughter, the little girl he'd spent a lifetime trying to convince himself that he was protecting. But seeing her laying there, bruised and battered and messed up as hell he couldn't help but think he should have let her go awhile ago. Not only to keep her safe from this life of demons and hell creatures… but to keep her safe from _himself_.

Their relationship had been so strained and nonexistent these last few years—maybe always, actually. Over the years Alex had become an expert at avoiding John and he'd been okay with that, because he knew in his heart of hearts that he wasn't good for her, that he had no clue how to parent her. So he hadn't really tried at all. After all, it had been too late. But now, in the sunset of his life, he wished he'd _tried. _Just a little.

He should have done _so much more _for her, but he'd always left her as an afterthought, uncertain how to relate to her, uncertain how to approach her at all. He'd been angry at her for being different and abnormal. But now he was just angry with himself for the selfish, cowardly shit he'd subjected her to. He thought of when she'd been younger, a little stick of a girl with eyes too big for her head. The taller she'd gotten and the older she'd grown, the more distance had been between himself and his daughter. Now, oceans might as well have separated them. And this was entirely his doing.

He was at her bedside now and didn't know what to do. He thought of waking her up to say goodbye—but he didn't. He just watched her for a minute, then carefully, gently smoothed the hair on her head and felt the heavy sadness settle over his heart. "Baby I'm so sorry," he whispered brokenly, and just looked at her, looked at his hand on her head. He realized he hadn't touched her affectionately like this in—well—he couldn't remember. He withdrew his hand from her. Here at the end of his life, he felt his failures so much more clearly than before.

John felt a deep sense of anguish overwhelm him inside and he turned, sat there gingerly beside her, just barely resting his weight on the hospital bed. He leaned over his knees, clasping his hands together, silent and looking down for a long moment. He looked upwards, searching the ceiling and despairing, his voice just a whisper. "I… I haven't asked you for anything in a long time. But just… can you make sure she's safe?" John hesitated. "_Please_. I know I don't deserve anything good from you. But… she does." His voice cracked. "_Please_." Silence, nothing. He wasn't sure if he'd expected a reply or not, but he felt disillusioned and for a long moment, silence rang in his ears. Was this really _it_? At the end of your life, maybe you always expect it will be different. More grand, more like the closing of a chapter, like a grand finale—not a question mark, not a comma.

John took in a deep breath and stood slowly to his full height, knowing what came next. He walked slowly to the door and turned back around, looked at his daughter, his little girl, one last time. And awash in regrets he could do nothing about, John Winchester steeled himself, drew a deep breath, and walked down the hall, a soldier until the end, accepting his fate with a raised chin, a steady gaze, and the knowledge that he had made the right choice. He had saved his son's life. He had kept his daughter safe from the clutches of the yellow-eyed demon.

Not even five minutes later, Dean would yank Alex out of bed and rush her into Dad's room where he was crashing, unresponsive. John Winchester would be pronounced dead at 10:41am.

* * *

**Present Day**

Alex spit and rinsed, the zing of minty toothpaste much better than the previous taste of vomit. _Never again _she told herself miserably. She'd been saying this to herself a lot lately. Her head was pounding, her ears felt muffled, her stomach was a frigging nightmare, her head felt garbled and woozy, her entire body hurt. Much to Sam's frustration, she and Dean had gotten wasted last night, again. But she'd drank so much more than usual, trying to keep up with her oldest brother—and she was now she was realizing exactly how _stupid_ she'd been to think she could out-drink Dean like that. God—this was the hangover from hell.

Alex rubbed her face with the palm of her hand. Tired. Hurting. Heartbroken.

The past month was a blur to her. They'd spent about a week at Bobby's detoxing Sam and avoiding each other—then they'd left for Minneapolis to take care of a vengeful spirit and it had been a cut and dry job, nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing except the mood in their family. There had been a lot of silence between all three siblings, a lot more tension than in awhile, a lot of unspoken frustrations and suspicions. But they'd done what they did best… ignored it, said nothing about it. Carried on like life were normal, like the apocalypse wasn't hanging over their heads, like the devil wasn't hounding Sam, like heaven wasn't after Dean.

After wrapping up on that job last week, they'd caught wind of weird stuff happening back in Sioux Falls and returned to find that the dead were rising—including Bobby's late wife Karen. At first the people who had come back to life had seemed okay, or at least not violent, not inhuman—but then one by one they began to turn, to kill, to dissolve into monsters. Alex stared at herself in the mirror, grieved. Bobby had wanted his wife to be okay and stay alive_ so badly_. He didn't deserve to be alone and unhappy like that. He didn't deserve for _one second_ to have to see his wife again and then kill her again. Maybe all hunters were cursed to be alone, to see the ones they loved die, leave, fade out.

Going still, Alex felt herself rapidly becoming emotional as she began to think about _him_. She clenched the edges of the sink now, hard. Castiel was pretty much the biggest reason she'd been drinking so damn much the past month. She'd been trying to sidestep her confused and hurt feelings, trying to drown them out in a steady tide of beer and whiskey—but her thoughts were proving impossible to escape or forget, and the more she tried to run away from them, the more it hurt, the more the feelings burrowed into her, refusing to be moved.

Cas wouldn't answer her anymore, not at all. Alex had called to him almost every day of that first week but he'd been silent, hadn't appeared at all, not even for a second. She hadn't even tried calling him at all this entire week, bitter, finally accepting that he wouldn't come. The last time any of them had seen or heard from him was at Bobby's, the night that… that they had come so close to killing each other or screwing each other, she wasn't sure which. The night that he'd confessed things to her and she to him, and for a moment she'd thought even though he had told her they _couldn't_, that they would anyway. Because even though he'd said that, even though he'd told her in so many words that being together couldn't happen—he'd gone against his words, kissing her so tenderly and soulfully, leaving Alex absolutely convicted that there _was_ no walking away, not from this… but then he had done just that, without any warning, and she'd been devastated, stunned. To have been warm in his arms one moment, then alone and cold the next.

At first, she'd called to him frantically, worried… but as the days passed the worry had turned to anger, disillusionment—now she was left feeling heartsick and alone, abandoned, with the reminders of him remaining on her body. She looked at the back side of her arm in the mirror, at the soft pink raised line where Dean had stitched her closed. A souvenir of the night when Castiel had cut her deep, in more ways than one. The bruises he'd left all over her body had faded, but the wounds he'd left on her heart remained, raw and open, painful.

Alex's eyes flickered over herself in the mirror and she could so clearly see the deep sadness that she felt inside. It was etched all over her face, hidden in the slump of her shoulders and in the edges of her mouth which hadn't turned up in a smile in days and days. She wondered in a saddened daze _how this had happened_, how she had let herself fall so completely, how she had become so weak and helpless. She realized had no control left, no say in the matter, no way out of being what she was: in love with Castiel. She wanted to physically break something out of anguished frustration. Maybe Alex would have in the past, but this version of herself had no fire left. And instead, she just hung her head and leaned onto the sink, squeezed her eyes shut, focused on breathing in and out. Shaky, agonized breaths.

She had never wanted something like this, ever. She'd always been focused on surviving and living up to expectations, fighting and following after Dean and Dad… it had been her only choice and she'd accepted it. But now she found herself desperately longing for something for the first time in her life—him. It seemed stupid but all she wanted was Castiel beside her and_ with _her, because with him she felt safe and right, part of something and those were two things she wasn't used to feeling. Maybe he was trying to protect her by putting distance between them... but she couldn't bear it—not after she knew what it was like to be in his arms and held like she was treasured. Not after she'd looked at him and seen her own feelings reflected back in his eyes.

And when she wondered if she would ever even see him again, her heart physically ached.

_Get—yourself—together. _She forced herself to look in the mirror again, forced herself to stop, now. She straightened up, looked herself over tersely but then grew listless, lost her determination in favor of faltering self-doubt. She barely recognized herself. She used to be different than this, more unaffected and less distracted. In the mirror, she saw a crumbling version of herself staring back. She felt inches away from a breakdown, from utterly shattering and she looked away, tried to ignore reality. She readjusted the unfamiliar weight of the new pistol that was in the holster at her hip. It was a semi-automatic nickel-plated Colt 1911, one like Dean carried—he'd went out and bought her one without warning last week and shoved it at her, told her that carrying the hunting knife wasn't enough. She smiled softly, cynically, because when she thought about the things they'd been up against lately—what good would a _gun_ do? The friggin' horsemen of the apocalypse and Lucifer in the flesh were after them. Her little smile fell. Maybe it was just a matter of time for all of them.

She could now hear low male voices vaguely in the other room through her messed up ears—the TV. Sam must be up she guessed. There was a flash of humiliation when she thought of her twin who had seen her in such an intimate and awkward position with Cas… as if that hadn't been bad enough, Sam had insisted on taking her aside and _asking about it_ a bunch of times, acting concerned and worried—but Alex, mortified as hell that he'd seen that, had dodged him every time. Sam didn't know how deep the wound was he was poking at, he was just worried about her, but Alex refused, further frustrating Sam. It was just that every time she looked at him, she saw his shocked and horrified expression when he'd found herself and Cas under Famine's spell. And then in quick succession, she'd remember more—Cas's mouth on hers, his warm bare skin under her hands, them breathing each other in frantically, her body rendered useless and in the throes of utter bliss underneath the weight of his body against hers… they'd been in a place together that was warm and alive and real. And so being ripped from it and left in this cold, blank state of nothing, of _alone_—it wasn't _fair_, she didn't _understand_, and it was not even frustrating anymore, it was infuriating.

Alex heard the familiar sound of a shotgun cocking out in the main room and looked toward the closed bathroom door now, annoyed. Sam must be cleaning out his shotgun again—why did he have to clean it so obsessively, anyway? He was always getting the burnt-smelling shell dust all over her stuff. Alex wanted to punch something because everything, _everything _was making her mad right now. The sound of the men talking heatedly on TV grew louder and Alex suddenly stopped, her anger fading away as she realized that _wait_. That wasn't the TV. That was someone in their room!

She realized too late that what she'd been hearing wasn't what she thought at all. Not a TV. Not Sam cleaning a gun. The unmistakable sound of two shotgun blasts punched through the silence and Dean was shouting, someone was barking "_stay down_!" and _something was very wrong_. Alex wasn't thinking, just reacting, and _fast_, adrenaline rocketing through her veins at breakneck speeds as she snatched her pistol out of the holster, charged out of the bathroom, gun held high in both hands—two men in dark clothing with masks shoved up over their heads stood over Dean, their shotguns aimed at him—Sam laid motionless and bloody on one of the beds—the men noticed Alex the second she came out and the one closer to her was whirling, his gun swinging around toward her and Dean was jumping off the other bed, lunging toward the guys shouting something and Alex was firing at the guy in front of her before she could even fully register anything, before she could even fully take everything in.

The room exploded into a chaos of gunshots and shotgun rounds and Alex felt something hit her in the stomach hard enough to make her stumble backwards—she watched the guy closer to her fall over dead, his shotgun that had been aimed straight at her clattering to the floor—she looked down at herself, mystified… her stomach was warm and sticky? And suddenly pain, unbelievable pain hit her and she stumbled backwards, the air gone from her lungs, her pistol falling out of her grip. She hit the wall behind her and slid down, legs going out from under her brokenly. The world seemed to tilt and shift around her oddly and she looked up—remembering Dean had been there and where was he now?

She looked to her side with great effort, hearing the sound of her own labored breathing loudly in her own ears. Shock hit her like lightning when she saw that Dean was draped across the bed, staring up at the ceiling lifelessly, covered in blood.

"D-Dean!" she choked out, but he didn't move, didn't respond. On the other bed, she could see Sam's massive feet hanging off the end, not moving. "Sam?" she begged. No response and the thought _they're dead_ shook her to the core and made the world close in on her, like her entire body was going to be sick, like everything was spinning out of control, like she couldn't move at all—and then the sound of booted feet in front of her. Alex looked up, panting painfully. She stared into the barrel of a shotgun—holding the weapon was a grim man. Behind him, the other guy she'd shot and killed was laying there. Alex squinted up at her attacker, recognizing him. "_W-Walt_?"

He just stared down at her murderously. "You shouldn't have shot Roy, Alex," he told her lowly, lip curling upwards in a snarl. She heard the cocking of a shotgun and flinched. _Click-click_.

His finger slid toward the trigger. Alex closed her eyes, making a pathetic crying sound. And she didn't even think it would work but out of desperation and in pain and not knowing what else to do, she begged softly, brokenly. "Please, Cas…"

* * *

**Five Minutes Ago**

**Glendalough, Ireland**

The Irish people called this glacial valley a 'thin place,' believing it to be a holy ground, a spiritual refuge where pilgrims could seek to be closer to God. They said that here the veil was less, the divide was smaller—that one could reach out and touch God, be still and listen and hear his voice. Pilgrims came from all over the world to this place. One such pilgrim stood at the shores of the upper lake, looking over the tranquil waters silently.

Castiel observed the great verdant mountains surrounding the rippling lake, the billowing gray clouds above in the sky. He felt the cool dampness of the air, heard the lush rustling of the trees moving in the breeze. It was beautiful, it was serene, it was holy—but he didn't feel God here. He'd been looking for so long. There was almost nowhere left to look. A great, unexpected gale of wind came across the lake, whipped Cas's trench coat around him.

He wondered where God could be. Perhaps he was hiding, walking among humanity in a disguise. Maybe he was that child laughing and throwing pieces of bread into the water for the ducks. Perhaps he was the grizzled old man sitting on the bench leaning on his cane. But the biggest and most disturbing question was why would God hide? Why should God be so impossible to find? _Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. _The word of the Lord. Castiel was beginning to feel as though he had been led astray… because how could a_ person_ find God if an _angel_ couldn't?

Cas's mind turned to Alex as it usually did, and he wondered where she was. She hadn't called to him in days. He felt guilty, because she'd called to him multiple times after what happened with Famine—and he'd gone to her immediately each time. But he'd remained invisible, not allowing her to see him. She had never known he was there at all. And each time she called to him, he'd arrived silently and he'd seen her face crumble when she believed he hadn't come—he saw her grow sadder and angrier each time. But he would rather her be sad and angry than dead at his hands. So he remained silent, made sure she was safe.

It was difficult to keep himself away from her like this, but he knew it was the right thing. He'd decided it now and he wasn't going to fail again. He'd had a moment of utter weakness when she had told him that she didn't want to walk away and _did he_? He just hadn't been able to bring himself to lie or sidestep. He'd only been able to tell her _no_, then close the distance between them with a kiss. A kiss that haunted his mind still. All of his moments spent with her haunted him, but that kiss—being so close to her, feeling as though she trusted him with everything that she had—it stayed with him and he felt certain that he would carry it with him forever.

A small bird flew overhead and Cas looked up and watched it: the powerful beating of the wings and graceful dip and swoop of the bird's body in midair. Truly a testament to God's artistry and power, something as seemingly simple as a bird. God was there, somewhere, and Castiel knew with perseverance and faithfulness, he would find him and discover—Cas stilled suddenly, hearing Alex calling to him—but this time was different—something was wrong, and he knew it right away.

He went to where she was immediately, and even before the scenery of Ireland faded completely, he smelled the unmistakable acidic tang of human blood. And he was in a dim motel room, mid-morning. In the space of a fraction of a second, Castiel took the sight before him in with a quickly rising sense of absolute horror—Alex was crumpled and slack against a motel wall in front of him, her legs were bent under her strangely, she was _covered in blood_, her eyes were closed tightly, her face was a mask of pain—and a man Castiel didn't recognize stood over her, wielding a shotgun, the end of it just inches from her face.

Startled by Castiel's sudden appearance, the man with the gun reacted fast and whirled, the shotgun arcing up through the air to aim at Cas—but realizing what was happening and fueled by a typhoon of soul-scorching fury, Castiel was erupting into a blazing assault—he stopped the barrel of the shotgun midair with both hands, tearing the barrel in half ruthlessly even as the guy pulled the trigger—buckshot fired out in a violent explosion, ripping through the air uselessly. Cas grabbed the man ferociously and whirled him around, brutally slamming him into the dresser that was against the wall. Wood splintered and the dresser broke in half completely from the force with which Cas had smashed the man into it—Cas ripped his blade from where it was hidden inside his trench coat, not even hesitating for a second, he brought the flashing blade down on the man who had dared to hurt Alex, ending him.

The man's eyes went wide as the blade plunged through his chest, and under Castiel's murderous gaze, the man gasped out a last breath and died with no grand fanfare. He slumped over and fell to the ground, where Cas stared down at him, breathing hard, his heart hammering faster than normal, his entire vessel feeling shaky and uneven. The room was silent once more. Cas looked to his side, where he saw Sam and Dean each laying on a bed—both shot dead.

In alarm Cas turned, laying eyes on Alex again, fearing what he would see—she was looking up at him and she looked _terrified_, her face twisted up in pain—she was struggling to breathe and Cas rushed over, dropped to his knees in front of her, shaking physically, horrified, his hands hovering over her arms as he looked at her and saw how bad it was. "_No_," he managed just barely, seeing that she'd been shot in the stomach, that she'd lost so much blood. It was pooling around her and the wall behind her was splattered with it, too. She grabbed onto the sleeve of his trench coat weakly and their eyes met and he saw how afraid she was and it was _just like_ the scene he'd witnessed in their future.

Panic swept over Cas as he realized that_ she was_ _dying _and quickly, too_—_and he was powerless to do anything—he couldn't heal anymore—but Cas laid his hand over her stomach anyway, dizzyingly sickened when his palm became wet with her warm blood, when she made a pained, sobbing sound—a sound that wrecked Castiel completely. He began silently pleading with God, promised he would do anything in return,_ anything_, if his father would allow him this one miracle, _please_! Cas stared at his hand in increasing dismay when nothing happened, and every desperate hope he'd held onto was dashed on the rocks, every bit of faith he'd placed in his father fell away from him like leaves fall from a tree in autumn.

Alex trembled violently underneath his hand, weakly putting her hand over his, her fingers shakily curling around his—Castiel stared at their bloody hands, shocked and dazed—at the sight of her smaller hand clinging to his larger one his chest spasmed painfully. He tightened his hand around hers, looked up at her, despairing. "It's too late," she choked out and he looked at her in abject denial, shook his head, gripped the side of her head not even knowing why, his fingers tangling in her hair. "No it _can't_ be," he protested, almost unable to speak, his despair was so great. Her warm hazel eyes were afraid, were searching his even as her chest rose and fell raggedly. "Cas, I—" she faltered weakly, then trailed off, blinked twice as if her lids were heavy, and her breathing hitched, she seemed to lose her focus completely—and Cas gripped her tighter, as if he could hold her back, keep her there with him—but she went still, her eyes sliding closed, her head lolling to the side, the breath gone from her lungs, the life gone from her body. And Cas was shellshocked, not breathing, staring at her, unable to even process what had just happened in the span of perhaps two minutes.

"_No_," he protested out loud, feeling as if everything inside of him were shattered and destroyed. His hand moved down from the side of her head to cradle her little face—his thumb brushed against the still-warm skin of her cheek and he felt so much sorrow well up inside of him that he felt he might break. This wasn't happening—she wasn't supposed to die like this! Beside himself in grief and shock and anger and helpless dismay, Castiel looked upwards, not knowing what else to do, his voice barely a whisper. "Take—take me instead," he said, then when nothing happened, his voice raised to an enraged shout. "Take me instead!"

The silence was deafening and his anger propelled him to his feet where he stumbled back a few steps, shaky. "Where_ are you_?!" he shouted at the ceiling. Nothing happened and Cas lowered his gaze, breathless, confounded, not knowing what to do, not at all. He looked at Alex's body, curled against the wall brokenly and he looked upwards again, his chest tight in pain. "I—I need your help," he begged desolately. "_Please_."

Castiel waited, desperate for an answer, for anything. But nothing happened. God was silent.

* * *

Silence. There is utter silence. Then the sound of a heartbeat in her ears. Her own heartbeat?

She becomes aware that there is darkness all around her, the kind of darkness that no light can cut through—the kind of darkness that presses in on all sides, cloyingly. There's some kind of ground underneath her feet, but the air is dank and motionless, breathing is difficult—she realizes there is an overwhelming sense of fright in the pit of her stomach, of _no, please, no_. Why is she scared? Where was she before this? Alex wonders _am I dreaming_?

She turns a little, trying to look around, but can't see anything past the pitch black depths around her. She turns again, growing more and more distressed—and then in the distance, just barely, her eyes perceive a faint light. She begins to stutteringly edge closer to it through the darkness and almost wants to drop to all fours and crawl because that seems safer, but she keeps moving slowly, closer, muscles tensed and mind on overdrive.

She gets closer and closer to the source of light, and can now begin to make out a definite structure. It's an old phone booth—the top of a solid stripe of blue, the white word PHONE flickers a little. It looks old and weather-worn—the soft florescent light from the booth dissipates out into the dark, softly lighting just a little bit of ground—pavement—but on all the other sides of the booth, the light doesn't hit anything—it's just solid darkness in every direction. She stands there in front of the phone booth, staring up at it oddly, unsure what's happening and where she is.

Without warning the shrill sound of the phone ringing cuts through the utter silence, the black receiver rattles loudly on the hook, and Alex flinches backwards, startled. She looks around, maybe halfway expecting someone to appear and answer the call. Nothing happens. No one appears. The phone continues to ring and Alex hesitatingly inches closer, hand outstretched. She waits a few seconds, unsure. Then grasps the receiver and holds it to her ear. She hears crackling on the other end and frowns. Then nearly drops the phone when she hears a voice _behind her_.

"Alex," the deep voice says and she turns around, heart in her throat because _she knows that voice_ only... _it can't be_, can it? But he's standing there not four feet away, looking just like she remembers. She looks at him in pure disbelief, the phone clutched in her hand so hard that her knuckles have turned white.

Alex searches his face and remains frozen in abject disbelief.

"..._Dad_?"

* * *

_Author's Notes: … WAH! Where is Alex?! What is happening?! What did Azazel mean and WHAT IS DAD DOING THERE and the plot thickens eeeeheheheh… _

_Anyway you should know that next chapter is like MAJOR CALEX STUFF OK. I know it was kind of sparse in this chapter. Definitely not in the next one. PLS REVIEW IT MAKES ME WRITE FASTER ;D_

_Also, if you're interested, I re-wrote/reworked chapter 1 if you guys need some more new stuff to read-the story now opens with Castiel monologuing around the time of Man Who Would Be King and I also fleshed out the chapter overall AND added in a flashback of Dean's to when Alex was mute later on-so, go, enjoy! :D _

_Big thank you as usual to my partner in crime, Jess, who seriously has made my life complete by helping me write this… _


	29. Dark Side of the Moon

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 29 / Dark Side of the Moon

"_The stars, the moon... they have all been blown out."  
_- Florence and the Machine

* * *

_Mama, put my guns in the ground I can't shoot them anymore…_

The sound of thunder rumbling wakes Dean, and he is momentarily confused. It's night outside, he's sitting in the Impala—alone. Good old Bob Dylan plays on the radio.

_That long black cloud is comin' down; I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door..._

He glances around, sees no sign of anyone—where is he? Dean switches off the radio, disconcerted—he can't remember why he's here or where _here_ is. He gets out of the car and realizes_ what the hell_? He's parked in the middle of the damn road. Okay, this is officially starting to weird him out… where the hell was he before he was here?

The trunk of the Impala closes and Dean turns at the sound, frowning. The frown fades into a surprised expression when he sees Sam standing there holding a huge crate of fireworks. Only, it's not Sam _now_, it's Sam when he was twelve or thirteen. He's got the shaggy sandy hair—the small face that hasn't filed out yet—the lanky awkwardness that comes with the early teenage years. "Sammy?" Dean asks, confused. There's a strange familiarity about this that Dean can't figure out.

"Come on, let's go!" Sam says, oblivious to Dean's puzzled confusion. His little brother is excited, grinning widely and already taking off into the field that is beside the road they're parked in. Dean stares after him for a fraction of a second before he feels something grab him. He looks down into the face of Alex, same age as Sam—hair in two messy ponytails on either side of her head and she's wearing that old green bomber jacket of Sam's—wow, he'd almost forgotten about that thing. It's oversized on her and she used to wear it all the time.

She's holding his arm with both her hands and is grinning up at him—the kind of grin she saves for when the three of them are up to mischief, to no good, to adventure. Her teeth are still too big for her face, and her freckles really stand out on her nose and cheeks. She is pulling on him excitedly, after Sam—apparently she can't wait to get to where they're going. "Weird dream," Dean comments to himself, but he goes along with it, lets Alex drag him to where Sam is. He smiles a little to himself. His brother and sister seem happy.

Sam plops the crate on the ground in the middle of an empty field. He pulls out a couple fireworks—Alex is grabbing two herself. "Got your lighter?" Sam asks Dean, and Dean hesitates—he's got that odd sense of deja vu again—he decides to go along with Sam's question and he checks his pockets, realizes he's wearing Old Faithful... that old leather jacket of his that he isn't sure where it went. In the deep front pocket, a familiar shape he'd all but forgotten. He pulls out his old Zippo lighter. "Whoa, I haven't seen this in years—" he says, surprised, turning it over fondly in the palm of his hand.

Alex swoops in and takes it from him, leaving Dean to chuckle. "Whoa, little pyromaniac," he says even as Sam is grinning and holding out a fistful of fireworks toward her, telling her "fire 'em up!" The twins look so excited as they light the fireworks—these are the kind you hold while sparks shoot out the top. Dean smiles softly, watches his siblings grin in unison, their eyes going wide in sheer zealous delight when the firework fuses catch fire. Sam and Alex run over to Dean with the lit fireworks, Sam gives him one—they hold them up high, at arms length, watch the fuses burn up, anticipating the moment when the fireworks will shoot off, when the magic will happen.

All of their fireworks go off in almost-perfect unison, firing brilliant red streaks of light up into the sky, showering the dark expanse in flecks of sparks—the trees nearby glow faint red against the light, Dean glances down at his siblings—Sam and Alex's eyes reflect the light—their smiles are wide and carefree, and this doesn't happen very often and Dean feels himself smiling, too, suddenly realizing why this seems so familiar to him. "Hey… I remember this!" he says, smile getting bigger as he looks up into the fountain of fireworks again. "It's Fourth of July, 1996!"

The fireworks die out, leaving the night dark once more and Dean looks down at Sam, who is looking up at Dean, so happy. "Dad would never let us do anything like this," Sam says. "Thanks, Dean. This is great."

Sam hugs Dean tightly around the waist—and Dean is kind of startled at the sudden burst of affection but he hugs Sam back after a second. His heart is really full, and he hopes Sam won't look at him, won't see how affected he is. Alex doesn't notice either of them, she's busy lighting all of the rest of fireworks a few feet off, and Sam sees her momentarily, lets out an excited whoop, pulls away from Dean—"fire in the hole!" he exclaims in terrified delight, running to his twin. He takes her by the arm and pulls her away to a safe distance there with Dean—

The fireworks begin to explode all at once and the night is no longer dark. There is a beautiful chorus of wild sparks and rainbow colors and zinging explosions against the dark velvet sky above their heads and Dean and Sam are laughing out loud now, Alex would be too—her head is throw back, mouth open in a huge silent laugh. Sam runs out and whirls around under the sparks, overjoyed at something as simple and carefree as this moment.

Alex hugs Dean around the waist, grinning toothily up at him, then she looks back up at the sky, her small head resting there against his chest trustingly. The fireworks snap and pop, ribbons of light raining down over the three of them. Dean slowly puts his arm around his baby sister, his hand squeezing her little shoulder—she's there and she's safe with him, and he's comforted by knowing that. Sam catches Dean's eye from where sparks fall around him like confetti and he's smiling so big—they nod at each other after a second, and Dean's heart swells too big for his chest. Because these two—this boy, this girl—they're his absolute world when all is said and done. Seeing those smiles stretched across their faces, seeing unrestrained joy dance in their eyes, seeing them doing something normal and wild and childlike… it's everything he ever wanted for them, it's too much for him to take, he feels his eyes filling up. He suddenly remembers what he thought in this _exact moment_, Fourth of July, 1996, fourteen years ago: _This is what happiness is._

There is an especially loud explosion, then another, and Dean is suddenly ripped from the good feelings and is brutally assaulted by a stark series of flashing memories: the motel room, Roy and Walt and their shotguns, Sam shot in the chest laying lifeless on the bed, Alex rushing into the room and Roy turning to shoot her, Dean frantically lunging for him, trying to save her, then... nothing. Dean is startled at the barrage of recollections, then he's back in the field, but it's pitch black now—Sam, Alex, the fireworks are gone and it's silent, still. It's also raining now lightly, feels colder than it did before. But the rain doesn't get him wet—he can't feel it at all. Where there was absolute joy and happiness, now there is horror, anxiety, dread.

Dean is breathing a little harder, freaked out. "Sam?" He pauses, worried, unsure. "Al?"

Nothing. Dean sees that the Impala is still there, and goes back to it, looks inside, then all around, trying to lay eyes on his siblings. This is a really weird, really vivid dream. It _is _a dream, right? And then inside the car, the radio comes on, very scratchy and filled with static.

"Dean!" Says a low, familiar voice. Dean frowns, leans into the driver's side window. "_Cas_?" he asks. The radio crackles again, and this time there's no mistaking whose voice that is, even though it sounds weird, like the voice is being filtered through a tin can. "Yes, it's me," Cas replies, and he sounds distinctly urgent.

Dean gets back in the car, sits in the driver's side seat, then suddenly this all seems to make sense. "You gotta stop poking around in my dreams," he tells the angel, then almost laughs at this point, a little relieved that this _is_ a dream after all. "I need some _me_ time."

"Listen to me very closely," Cas's voice says intensely. "This_ isn't _a dream that you're in."

Dean's smile fades and he gets a little worried by Cas's tone. "Then... what is it?" Then he thinks of those memories of the motel room, Sam covered in blood, Alex about to be shot... and his heart hitches slightly. He looks around the dark, nondescript landscape surrounding the Impala and it's with a sudden, huge amount of dread that he asks his next question. "Where… where exactly am I?"

"Heaven," Cas replied immediately, shortly, like he wants to discuss something else. Dean however is blinking in surprise. "You're joking!" he says, but then he quickly follows it up with, "you _are _joking, right?"

"No Dean, I'm not joking," Cas's angry voice crackles through the radio.

"_Heaven_?" Dean asks, looking around at his surroundings again, definitely _not_ getting pearly gates from what he's seeing. Plus, what the hell would _he _be doing in Heaven? This has to be a mistake. He's stumped. "Okay, well if that's true… how did I get here? And wait, _wait_—" he is frowning intensely now, realizing something. "Does this mean I'm _dead_?"

"Yes you are and please, just _listen_," Cas says, impatiently, his voice hard and urgent. The radio static buzzes and then cracks. "This spell, this connection, it's difficult to maintain."

Dean thinks about Sam, dead and full of buckshot and laying on the bed next to him in the motel room. His stomach seizes up in fear because that can only mean one thing... "Where's Sam, Cas?"

"He's there in Heaven too, ahead of you on the—"

Another terrible thought occurs to Dean, and he's suddenly leaning forward, cutting the angel off completely. "Cas—Alex! Is she—? Did she—" he can't bring himself to ask the question, he only remembers his sister whipping around the corner out of the bathroom, being stupid and heroic and thoughtless and Roy whirling, his shotgun raised high… but there's a chance that maybe she shot him first, right? There's a chance that she got the jump on both those assholes and survived, she's a good shot, hung over or not, right?

There is a very long pause and for a second, Dean worries that the call or whatever has been cut off and he bangs on the dash a couple times with his fist, thinking the radio is broken. "Cas, you there?"

"Yes, I'm here," Cas says, and he sounds less focused than he did before. The radio crackles, almost making Cas's next words sound shaky or wavering. "She's—she's dead too, Dean."

Dean sits back in his seat, aghast. "Isn't she supposed to have some angel protection deal?"

There's a long pause, no reply at all and Dean is getting mad now because he realizes Cas is purposefully not answering. "_Cas_!"

"I'm here, Dean," Cas replies in a low, even tone and Dean purses his lips in irritation, lets out an irritated breath through his nose. "Okay, right, Alex is dead too, good job Cas—so where the hell is she? I see a whole lotta nothing and no one out here."

The radio crackles loudly. "I... I can't locate her," Cas says, and the way the angel sounds worried and uncertain sets Dean at even greater unease. "She's drifting, Dean, I've—I've never seen anything like it."

"What the hell do you mean, she's _drifting_?" Dean asks, his stomach tightening in alarm.

"The souls and your bodies... they leave a connection here on earth to where they are in Heaven, and with this spell I can see where _you_ are, where _Sam_ is but—I can't pin her down and it's—I'm not—she's _in_ Heaven, I think but..." he sounds really unsure now, almost like he's talking to himself. "She shouldn't be drifting, no one does that—"

"Well what the hell does it _mean_, Cas?" Dean demands, getting more and more anxious and worked up by the second.

"I'm not sure, just..." Cas pauses, then sounds really urgent again, hurried. "I'm running out of time, Dean. What do you see?"

"What do you mean 'what do I see'?" Dean asks, getting more agitated, more alarmed. He doesn't like to be rushed. Thunder rumbles again, distantly.

"Some people see a tunnel or a river," Cas states, then asks again: "What do you see?"

"N-nothing!" Dean says, freaked out, not seeing a tunnel, or a river—nothing besides his damn car and the road outside. "My dash," he tells Cas. "I'm in my car. I'm on... I dunno, some road."

There's a second of silence, and Cas's voice is weaker, sounding farer away than before and distorted oddly. "Follow the road, Dean—you'll find Sam and—" the radio dies out completely and Dean waits a second. "I'll find Sam and _what_? Cas?" he fiddles with the radio controls but all that does is turn music back on. "_Dammit_." Dean mutters—it's not Cas he hears coming through the speakers now, it's Guns N' Roses.

_Take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty… oh won't you please take me home?_

The song feels foreboding to him somehow. Dean looks around, doesn't see much else to do but what Cas said. "Okay," he says to himself reluctantly, thinking about Sam and Alex and oh yeah the fact that_ they're both dead_. He lets out a shaky breath and nods a little, wishing he had more to go on than what Cas told him, wishing he knew how the hell he was gonna get them out of this mess. "Follow the road…" he mutters, then shrugs to himself, shakes his head. First step is find Sam and Alex. After that he'll figure the rest out. Dean cranks the Impala and starts down the dark highway. The moon is huge, glowing strangely, and the sky is purple-toned, odd. The stars seem unsteady, spinning in slow, concentric circles overhead.

Maybe it was all supposed to be beautiful, but to Dean, it felt ominous.

There's no way for Dean to know what's happening back on earth right now, but as he speeds down Heaven's highway, Cas is picking up Alex's body, laying her down so gently on the third bed in the room—moving her hair away from her face, looking down at her in turmoil, his hand lingering there at the side of her face. "Where_ are _you?" he asks softly. He looks at her a moment longer and sadness like never before presses down on him like absolute gravity. "Where did you go?"

* * *

"Alex," he says, and she turns around and nearly has a stroke right then and there because it's her _dad_ standing there!

Alex looks at him in stunned-to-stillness disbelief because she hasn't seen his face in four years but it's _him _and he's _exactly_ how she remembers—tall, solidly built, scruffy beard stoked with the beginnings of gray. Same messy dark head of hair. Same tired eyes. She blinks a few times, shellshocked. "..._Dad_?"

He's smiling kind of hesitantly at her with his mouth, but his _eyes… _they are really emotional, really _full_, not holding back like his lips are. She's never seen him look at her like this before and she feels a deep suspicious fear immediately. "Hi baby," he says softly, like speaking is difficult for him, like he's fighting back tears. What the hell is this? Some kind of sick joke?

Alex looks at the phone in her hand—realizes she's wearing that old green jacket of Sam's that used to be too big for her—what the hell, she lost this thing years ago, didn't she? She looks around into the gaping, swallowing darkness everywhere, then back at Dad, totally dazed and confused. She notices now that he looks sort of wrong in his coloring, kind of pale or desaturated slightly. He's emanating an unnatural soft light, too—underneath his feet she can see pavement in a faint circle where light hits it. "Am I dreaming?" she asks, trying to think hard about where she's been before this, but she can't remember a thing. "What _is_ this?"

He doesn't seem to hear her question, he's just looking at her with this slightly awed, taken aback expression. He takes a minute to answer, clearly processing something. "Your... your voice is so _beautiful_," he says, sounding stunned. Alex feels slapped by the words and recoils physically, wanting to slam the phone on the hook and flee the area—who is this impostor standing in front of her? "I heard you got your voice back, but—" he begins, and she moves to leave because this can't be right and she can't do this—but he steps forward then stops short like he's held back by something invisible, like he can't come any closer. He holds up a 'stop' hand, panicked suddenly. "Don't—don't hang up the phone. I can't call back."

"Can't call back?" she asks, getting more and more freaked by the second. She's pressed herself back up against the phone booth, keeping her distance. "You're _dead_!"

He goes still, looks at her and grows completely solemn, like he's about to break bad news to her. "Yes. I am dead. So are you."

Alex makes a face at _that _suggestion. "Uh... what?" She could almost laugh at what he'd said. "No... I'm dreaming."

"You're not dreaming, baby." He looks incredibly sad. "You know how I know? I made a deal to be able to talk to you when you... when you died."

What? In front of her, Dad literally flickers, like a light, and Alex goes slack jawed. Wait. _Wait_.

She's suddenly seeing the motel room and she's remembering the sound of Sam being shot, getting shot herself, praying to Cas—and literally as soon as the words were out of her mouth, his arrival. He'd brutally decimated her murderer and he'd come to her, dropped to his knees and held her and oh God, Cas, the look on his face, his hand against the shotgun wound, the helplessness and terror written onto the features of his face. And she'd struggled to _tell him _because she'd felt her life fading out completely, she'd known she was dying—she had been trying to _tell him _because he should know, even if he couldn't feel the same way, that someone, somewhere loved him, and that someone is and was her—but then she had faded out, she'd slipped away. She'd _died_. Alex looks looks at Dad, eyes wide—he's waiting for her to reply and she's clenching her jaw, shaking her head 'no,' upset and reeling, trembling suddenly, close to tears and feeling physically ill. "All right, _look_, I don't know who you are or what you want—but I'm out of here."

"Alex—_please_—don't—" Dad begs, and the way he says it freezes her on the spot. "It's me," he says earnestly, urgently. "I can prove it."

She doesn't like this at all, but for some crazy reason, she decides not to walk away... not yet. But every muscle is prepared to if he comes any closer. She fixes him with a terse expression and she steels herself. "Prove it _how_?"

Dad looks uncharacteristically uncomfortable, almost like the John Winchester she'd met in 1978—a little unsure, a little nervous. It's so strange and disconcerting. "It was uh, nineteen ninety-two…" he starts, frowning in thought, thinking hard. "You'd just turned nine and I'd... forgotten your and Sam's birthday." He pauses. "_Again_." Alex is stunned at his use of the word 'again' because Dad never admitted or acknowledged his mistakes or shortcomings _at all_, at least not to her. But maybe she always wished he had and hearing him admit that, even in a roundabout way, sets her chest clenching and pulse pounding unsteadily.

"We went to that state fair, remember?" he asks, his dark eyes searching hers for a sign of recognition. Alex _does_ remember but she doesn't confirm or deny, just stays stony and silent, deeply upset but refusing to show it. "And I was on my phone pretty much the whole time, I kind of let you kids do your own thing…" he sounds unhappy, but continues. "Sam and Dean went on some ride that you weren't tall enough for… you were always kinda small for your age…"

Alex remembers this as he's talking, remembers watching those two tall brothers of hers going onto the Tilt-A-Whirl. She'd been one inch too short to ride, and Dad had been on his phone, not really present—talking to some hunter friend about some job. She'd watched Sam and Dean jealously for a second, then she'd spied the bottle toss and realized that she had a moment alone with Dad. She'd gotten the idea that maybe she could impress him, and had suddenly been desperate to do just that.

Dad is continuing. "So you and me, we went to the bottle toss—well, you kind of dragged me. I wasn't really paying attention, remember baby?" He's looking at her appealingly. "But then you got your turn and…" he is looking down, remembering. There's a soft little smile now. A _proud _little smile. "The guy manning the booth said he'd never seen a kid destroy the shelf like that—you hit every single bottle, went down the line like you were a damn soldier at a shooting range and… I watched that, I saw it and… you looked up at me when you finished and I told you good job and I was proud of you, remember?" He looks like he feels bittersweet. "I don't know if I've ever seen you so happy. Just cuz I told you I was proud." Alex is now failing to hold herself together, her mouth won't hold still, her throat seizes up in pain, her eyes sting. And Dad's smile is cracking, falling, into something more like shame. "It was one of the only times I told you that," he says.

She swallows painfully, and her eyes glitter with tears when she looks to the side, avoiding his gaze. "It's the _only_ time I remember," she says, feeling wounded all over again. She's always remembered that day fondly… tagging along after her two brothers, riding ride after ride after ride, getting sticky fingers from cotton candy. It had been one of those days where she'd felt _real_, like a kid or a person, not just a shadow. Mostly it was because she'd had that moment with Dad when he had looked down at her and she'd felt like he _saw her, _really saw her. His mouth had curved to the side in a smile, all for her. "Wow kiddo, look at you—I'm impressed!" he'd said, and those words might as well have been fairy dust like in Peter Pan—she'd felt like she could fly into the next galaxy, and then, _and then_ he'd ruffled her hair and put his hand on her shoulder, he'd looked at her so fondly. "That was a damn good job. I'm proud of you, Alex." Her little heart had wanted to burst in happiness when he told her that, and she knew he didn't like hugs but she'd hugged him anyway tight around the waist, her eyes closed, grinning widely. He'd hesitated, then put his arms around her awkwardly. And that was Alex Winchester's best memory of her dad. And now, to her, it seems pathetic that she would cling to it all these years… but she has.

She tries to get a hold over herself and levels him with a mistrustful glare because him knowing that memory doesn't mean much, and she wasn't born yesterday, and she still doesn't really believe that's Dad. "Any half-cocked demon could know that about him, about me," she says. "It doesn't prove anything." She thinks a second, then gets an idea. She narrows her eyes at him calculatingly, wondering if he'll pass the test. "What date did Mom die?"

Dad answers immediately, not even having to think about it. "November second, nineteen eighty-six." That wasn't the real question, that wasn't the real test—this next question is. Alex raises her chin just a fraction, challengingly. "And what date was Dean born?"

Dad's certainty flickers. He doesn't look so sure. "Uh… January. Fourth."

Alex smiles cynically, lets out a soft, disbelieving huff of air as she looks down. "January _twenty_-fourth. Nineteen seventy-nine." She looks back up at him with a lot of mixed emotion. It _is _him. If it were an impostor, they would have rattled off the date without a second thought. But Dad… he never remembered their birthdays.

"Never was good with dates," he says lamely, and he looks stricken, completely guilty. Then a little cynical as he smiles wanly. "It really is me," he says, but doesn't sound like he's begging her to believe him anymore. Now he sounds like he is disappointed in himself, but he shakes it off, turns his attention back to her.

Alex is trying to process all of this. She's dead, talking to Dad, and she just doesn't know what to think or feel, and she just really wishes Cas or Dean or Sam were here because she's scared as hell and the darkness feels like it's drowning her. Dad is looking at her thoroughly, concerned. Not angry, not disappointed, not annoyed, not bitter. And it's all she had ever hoped for but it feels wrong and unfamiliar and she can't take it. She pushes her feelings about him down. "Where—where are you, Dad?" she asks, trying to regain control over the moment, trying to put together the pieces of this puzzle, figure out what's going on. "Where are you… calling me from?" she looks at his image in front of her, he flickers again.

"I'm okay," he says in that firm, don't-ask-me-more way he has. His smile is back and tinged with sadness. "That's all you need to know."

Alex wants a straight answer but lets it go—this is Dad after all, and she knows when to back off—she glances around her, into the pitch black expanse around them. She feels small, lost, bordering on hopeless and she's scared. "Okay so... where am _I_?"

John shakes his head slowly, glances around, seeming to see things, his dark eyes darting back and forth. "I'm not sure. All I see is a run down parking lot."

"What?" Alex asks, and she's looking around again—but she can't see anything but the phone booth and her dad—she can barely even see her own feet, they're almost lost in the darkness. Confused, Alex looks at her dad and she's getting more and more alarmed at this weird situation. If she's dead… this can't be Heaven, can it? Cas told her that souls generate their own heavens, and this is definitely not heavenly to her. Which only leaves one other option, doesn't it? Funny, she always thought Hell would be a lot hotter and oranger. Like in the movies. Like the inside of a volcano times a thousand. But this darkness actually does seem worse than any fire could ever be–it seems to seep into her soul itself. She's quiet now, looking at Dad falteringly. "Am I… am I in Hell?"

"No, no, I don't think so." Dad says and shakes his head, looks at her with his eyebrows knit together—Alex looks at him suspiciously now... because he's only looked at her like that—worried to his core—a couple times in her life, one of them when she accidentally got shot when they'd been hunting some vampires. Even though she's pretty sure that _is _Dad in front of her, seeing him like this is so unfamiliar and weird and upsetting. She wishes for Dean so badly right now, because he would know what to do—he always does.

Dad takes in a long, slow breath, looks at her, hesitating and she waits, entire body tense—she isn't sure why, but she dreads what he's going to say, because of that indescribable _look _on his face. So when he finally says, "Alex... I'm so sorry," and the words are so heavy with a heartbroken earnestness—Alex feels even more afraid. Cautious, disjointed feeling, Alex looks at him, filled with hope and dread all at the same time. "For—for what?"

"Everything," he says, and his eyes falter, he looks down, seeming pained. Alex can't believe her ears. "For ignoring you. For hurting you." His jaw is tight, works oddly. "I failed you completely and I know that now. I, I knew it then, too." He shakes his head morosely, looks off to the side, emotional. He sounds so, so tired. "I should have asked you how school was going and helped you with homework and spent time with you that wasn't... I don't know, gun drills. I should have been involved in your life. In all you kid's lives."

Alex feels like everything he just said was true and what she's always wanted to hear but at the same time it is too little and feels like an insult, like too small of an apology for too big a wound. It makes her cynical, angry. "Sounds nice, but isn't it a little too late for all that?" she asks sharply.

Dad's expression wavers. "It is. I know that." His dark eyes hold a faint hope, a deep pain. "But I hope... someday... you can forgive me."

"_Forgive_ you?" she repeats, and she shakes her head, looks away, struggling to control all this sudden anger. How _dare _he? Every time he overlooked her, shoved her, made her feel small and stupid rings through her memories and she lets the phone go and it swings down, clanging against the post of the phone booth loudly.

"You would walk into the room and I… most little kids see their dad and get _excited _and _happy_, but _you_ would come in and there I was on red alert every time, making sure I didn't mess up and make you mad, trying to figure out if Dad was trashed or not, if I needed to avoid you that day, if you were in a shitty mood or not..." she looks at him and feels none of the mind-numbing fear that she used to as a kid. Instead she only feels disgust and anger and sadness underneath it all. "You know, I lived in fear of you for so many years. It shouldn't have been like that."

He looks utterly ashamed but Alex isn't done, in fact, she's beginning to feel adrenaline surge as she stands up to her father for the first time in her life. "You think you should have helped me with _homework_? How about making sure I could survive in the real world? How about making sure your kids had options other than the hellhole life you picked for yourself? Do you even know what Dean has been through since you've been gone? What Sam has had to deal with?"

"I wish I could take it back," he says and she scoffs, can't believe his hypocrisy.

"'Wishing never got anyone anything,'" she says, and she knows he'll recognize that phrase. Dad looks up at her sadly. She's quoting him back to him and he realizes it. He doesn't get angry, still. He just looks devastated and Alex softens a little. Just a little. "You spent my whole life chasing after ghosts. After someone who was long gone. But us? We were _there_. We _needed_ you."

"I know," he says faintly. "I know."

"No you don't know!" Alex almost shouts, then looks at him through tear-filled eyes. She feels herself shaking. "If you _knew_, you would have _changed _it! You wouldn't have done what you did! You—you were a _terrible_ father," Alex says, and her voice is breaking with tears, her voice is raising a little in desperation. "So why the hell do I still _love you_?" she sobs out involuntarily. "When you _hated_ me so much?"

He looks almost horrified. "I didn't hate you—Alex _no_, I hated _myself_," John says brokenly, and now he has the audacity to look _tearful _and he tries to move forward to her, but he can't seem to, and he shuts his eyes regretfully, his head bows down.

Alex looks at her dad. Those words she'd just said should have felt good, should have made her feel retribution and victory, but instead she feels even worse than before. She tries to cover it up with cynicism. "Guess this isn't what you had in mind when you arranged for that last phone call to good old Alex, huh?" she asks, a bitter smile on her lips. Her smile falters, she looks at him sadly. "What'd it cost you, anyway?"

"It's not important," John replies, and he sounds resigned, sad, heavy. He sniffs, clears his throat. "Your brothers taking good care of you? Keeping you safe?"

"I'm _dead_," Alex says somewhat spitefully, avoiding looking at him so she doesn't have to feel guilty about how sad he looks. "So… you figure that one out."

He doesn't give up. He sounds gentle, appealing. "You, you got a boyfriend back home? A husband?"

Alex's mouth drops open slightly and she looks at him, she feels so flustered, because the second he asks that, she's picturing Cas, suddenly wondering where he is, if she'll see him again, if he's all right. Missing him intensely, wishing he were there with her. Dad sees her expression, nods slightly, takes it as a yes.

"He better be one hell of a guy," he says softly, and Alex opens her mouth to deny it, to tell him she has no boyfriend, husband, partner, lover, whatever—but instead, she pauses, kind of surprises herself when she nods and says softly, "Yeah… yeah he is."

Dad looks somewhere between happy and sad to hear this, like he can't believe she's old enough for him to ask her all this. "He treats you right?" Dad asks falteringly. "Looks out for you?"

Alex thinks of Castiel, the angel who watched humanity from afar for thousands of years, who restored her voice, who showed up and awakened something in her that she hadn't even known existed. She thinks about the sound of his voice, the sight of his face, the feel of his touch, the things he's done for her, what she knows he would do for her: anything. And Dad's question hangs in the air. "Yeah," she says, thinking hard, staring into middle distance. "Yeah. He treats me right. He looks out for me. He…" she trails off. "I love him," she says suddenly, simply, and saying it out loud makes her entire body flush over in surprise. She's overwhelmed and near tears again, but for a different reason because he thinks of the way their relationship has become something neither of them can walk away from, she thinks about all he's done for her, about the way he looks at her, the way he's kissed her. And in her mind the following things flash before her: Cas entrusting his angel blade to her and leaving himself defenseless—giving her the memory of the panic room back when he could have left her never remembering it at all—how fiercely protective he is of her, even more than either of her brothers—all of it adds up to one thing, and she can't disbelieve it anymore. She won't. She's slightly breathless now. She looks Dad in the eye, and as she says it, she can feel the surprise and realization written on her face. "And… and I think… I think he loves me too."

Dad looks slightly puzzled and Alex realizes how that must sound. "It's... complicated," she tells him, then manages to chuckle just barely, looks down. "_Really _complicated." She grows somber. "And if I can't get undead… well… I guess it won't matter anyway."

Dad seems to take her point. "How did you die, Alex?"

"Shot," she says wanly, not proud of it. "By _Walt Fletcher. _Friggin' idiot." Her mouth twists in displeasure. "Stupid way to die," she mutters, then grows more reflective and serious. "I always thought I'd die saving someone's life. Not… in a motel room." She swallows painfully, thinking how it's ironic—she's watched Dad die, Sam die, Dean die. All of their deaths rocked her life, left her shaken to her core, left her forever changed. But Dad… he'd left on purpose and without saying goodbye to her. That, and he'd _stayed _dead unlike her brothers.

When she had found out, months later, that he'd known he was going to die, she'd been devastated. She still is. She wishes it didn't hurt her so much, and she wants to lash out, to insult him or cut him verbally, but when she opens her mouth, her voice cracks, catches, and she's suddenly crying again, face crumpled, and she's not insulting him, she's appealing to him despairingly. "Dad I wish you had said _goodbye_ to me," she manages. "B-before you died."

He looks at her, clearly heartbroken. "We get to say goodbye now, baby."

"But why didn't you _then_?" she asks in utter anguish.

There are tears in his eyes now, his mouth is pressed into a line. He shakes his head blankly, looking like he isn't too sure of the answer. "I felt like there was nothing I could have said… that anything I could have said would have just made it worse." Alex's eyes are blurred with tears. She's mourning the relationship she never had with her father, because she can see now, briefly, what it might would look like. What he might be like, what she might be like, if things were different. But things aren't different—the reality is that all that's between them is wreckage, ruin. He's looking at her regretfully. "I didn't know it would mean that much to you," he says. It's Alex's turn to shut her eyes in morose pain. Dad continues. "I thought it would be better for you if I just walked out… didn't try and fix something I couldn't fix." Alex's heart sinks in absolute grief.

There's a pause, and when Dad speaks again, it's reminiscent, tempered with a deep fondness. "I… I remember the night you and Sammy were born…" he says softly. Alex opens her eyes, looks at Dad, barely able to. He's never talked about this before. "I held you for the first time, you were _so tiny_… and you looked right up at me. I know babies can't see at that age but—I swear—you looked right at me and... I felt like I never loved anyone as much as I loved you right then." His voice cracks, his smile is struggling. "I just wish I could have held onto that, instead of letting your mom's death consume me like it did." He goes silent, looks off into long distance. "Things would have been very different. For all of us." He looks back at her, miserable but resolute, his shining eyes capturing her gaze completely. "I know I've always had a hell of a way of showing it but… Alex, I love you. I do."

Alex's face crumples completely, her heart and head are overwhelmed completely by what he just told her. "_Dad_," she sobs out, and there are tears running down her cheeks, she wishes he were really there, that he wasn't just a flickering representation of himself. She isn't sure when she wrapped her arms around herself, but there she is—standing there crying in front of her dad who looks so close but isn't there at all.

He seems to hear something beside him and suddenly seems rushed, sidetrack. "I don't have much time left… Sam—is he... how is he?"

Alex is mystified, but hears the urgency in his voice. "Well, he's dead," Alex says, wiping her cheeks, swallowing her tears, trying to get herself together. "But—but before that, he was fine I guess."

Her dad looks at her significantly. "You and I both know that's not the truth."

Alex frowns just slightly. "You mean the demon blood?"

Dad shakes his head. "There's more wrong with Sam than that, Alex."

She pauses, her stomach twisting. "What, Sam being Lucifer's vessel? We already know about that."

He shakes his head, growing more and more hurried. "_No_—that's part of it, but—" he looks up suddenly and fear flashes across his face. "They found me—"

"Who?" she asks apprehensively, looking up where he's looking but not seeing anything. "_Who _found you?"

He looks back at her and some invisible, violent wind is rustling his hair and clothes. His voice grows urgent, he's shouting now, and Alex is afraid. "Tell Dean it's _not over_, the danger isn't gone, that Azazel planned to use you and Sam to—"

Suddenly his image flickers out completely, leaving a huge black nothing in front of Alex. She doesn't even have a chance to register that—the phone booth fades out too, and she is suddenly in total, complete darkness, left with the sound of her own panicking heartbeat, her own heavy breathing. She stumbles backward, falls over onto her back—the phone booth had been there, but now there's nothing at all.

And then there is a blinding flash of light from somewhere up above and Alex's eyes unable to take it—she throws an arm over her eyes, the harsh light fades somewhat and she winces and squints over to her side, propping herself up onto an elbow. Her eyes are completely overwhelmed because she can see now, but it's all too bright and blurry and out of focus like there's a film over her eyes—she can make out an overcast and unnaturally green sky above an abandoned shopping center parking lot. There are a few dinged up old shopping carts scattering the cracked old pavement—she sees the Impala parked over at the edge of the concrete ocean, hears _Fortunate Son_ playing faintly on the car speakers—there's a striking familiarity to all of this and wait, was this…? That time she Dean and Sam had raced shopping carts around for hours when they were supposed to be on some dumbass field trip? But where are Dean and Sam? She feels like they should be here.

At that moment the parking lot kind of spins and wobbles dizzyingly, then she realizes it looks fake on closer examination, like an unfinished painting. In fact, parts of the scene seem to drift off into the air now—parts of the parking lot peel up like old paint curling up in summer heat, one of the shopping carts drifts apart completely and turns to dust, the Impala is melting into the ground, turning into a strange black puddle, and the music slows down, skips, becomes low and unrecognizable, messed up—the pavement isn't pavement anymore, it's some unrecognizable flat gray material—and it's still all blurry and hazy and hard to see and if she wasn't freaking out before, Alex definitely is now.

Alex hears the sound of clicking footfalls approaching and looks up, disoriented, confused, somewhat expecting to see her dad, but it's not. Unlike everything else, she can see the newcomer perfectly and her eyes go wide. "Well, hello young lady!" Zachariah says, smiling down at her with creepy cheerfulness. "Fancy meeting you here!"

Panic rushes her and she shoots to her feet in record time, turning to run the opposite direction, only to bump right into him—he's moved through space, anticipating her move—he holds her hard by both arms, his grip painful and vice-like. He is still smiling pleasantly. "Now, where the hell are those pain-in-the-ass brothers of yours?"

* * *

Castiel sat there in the utter silence, next to her dead body. Her blood was on his trench coat. He'd faced himself away, sitting on the edge of the bed where he'd put her. Now he stared at the wall across from himself. He knew that if he looked away from the wall, he'd see her out of the corner of his eye, and at the sight of her the helpless panic and horror would return, the fear would take him over. So he stared, waited, every muscle tensed to the point of painfulness. He'd done what he could—he'd taken the bodies of the murderers away, left them somewhere in the middle of the smoky mountain wilderness. They would probably never be found, not by people anyway. The animals and the elements would take them, destroy what remained.

It had been an hour since it all happened—since he'd come here and seen her die in front of his eyes. He still couldn't really understand it, understand that it had really happened, that she was really dead and gone. It felt unreal, too horrible to be the truth. He sat in the silence, wrestling with not knowing what had happened to her soul or where she was. Castiel had laid her down onto the third, empty bed after he'd realized God wasn't going to answer him. He'd looked around the room, seen his dead friends covered in their own blood and felt overwhelmed by guilt. He could have prevented all of it. He had felt like all the gravity in the universe was all in one place there above him, crushing him down completely as he stood back and stared at Alex's slight frame alone there, crumpled against the blood-spattered wall—he couldn't leave her there. It hadn't been right. So he'd picked her body up and the moment he'd done so, he'd seen himself in 2014 doing the same—but the difference was, what Anna had shown him had been all visual. When he'd picked her up today, he'd _felt _the complete lifelessness of her dead weight there in his arms and it had devastated him all over again. Now, he could barely look at her, because with each passing moment, he felt the absence of her more and more deeply. With each second that ticked by, Alex felt further and further away, more and more impossible to reach.

The spell he'd worked, he'd done it five times already, trying it again and again because he didn't understand—he could feel Dean and Sam's souls because of the ritual, he could tell where they were and could communicate with them through the veil passably; their souls were steady and slow, bright lights in the darkness, but hers—hers was like a distant dying light that his eye could never catch, and it alarmed him—he had never seen any soul do that. He couldn't pinpoint her, he couldn't reach her at all. Why was she drifting? Why was she lost? And most importantly, could she be brought back at all?

Castiel knew that Sam and Dean were important to Heaven, that when angels found them, they would be sent back to their bodies without hesitation or question—but Alex—his chest twisted up in pain.

He never told her this, perhaps because of pride. But when Heaven cast him out, he had been cut off from things other than his angelic abilities. He was no longer Alex's Heaven-elect guardian. However—no other new guardian had appeared. Castiel would have known if another angel watched over her... and there had been none. Perhaps that was his fault as well, because he'd put the angel wards on her ribs—perhaps she received no no guardian because Heaven couldn't find her. For some time he'd had the audacity to believe that his father was still entrusting_ him_ to do this job, to protect Alex, even though the order of angels had turned him away. Now he faced the reality of the fact: either Heaven was purposefully ignoring the order to protect her... or the order had been abolished completely. He didn't know which it was, only that he had been here, walking the same earth as her—and he had failed to keep her alive. And now she didn't matter to Heaven and if Castiel couldn't reach her and bring her back, who could? He knew that beside him, within arms reach, she laid, growing stiff and cold. He knew that with every passing minute, the chance that Sam and Dean would be found increased. He shut his eyes now, listened to himself breathing. How alone he felt, how completely and utterly alone.

He was left here in the silence and the horror, completely helpless. Left with the reality of Alex, dead, slipped from his grasp. He wanted desperately to return to Heaven, to find her himself, to bring her back—but he was literally locked out of with no way in. He could hear the celestial whispers, he could_ see_ into Heaven with various rituals and spells, but he couldn't actually _go_ there and it was maddening. How strange, how lonely, to be this being who walked the earth between the realms, not quite human enough to be a man, not quite Heavenly enough to be an angel. He belonged to nothing and to no one but this family of broken people. To nothing and no one but her.

He looked at her now, and his stomach clenched, his body trembled. How could she be so close and at the same time so impossible to reach? He smoothed her hair again, searched her face, sickened inside, lost.

The television made a strange garbled sound, startling him in the piercing silence. "Cas!" came a familiar voice. Castiel rose and went to the set quickly, sudden hope surging in him. "I can hear you," Cas said, and peered hard into the television. He could faintly see Dean and then Sam too in a distorted, static-filled picture and he looked harder, hoping to see Alex, too, but he saw no one else, only an empty living room and the two Winchester boys. Dean seemed agitated, his face filling the screen as he leaned close. "Cas! I found Sam but, but I can't find Alex—you gotta tell me where she is, man!"

Castiel felt himself tense in anxiety, and the sick feeling increased, the hopefulness dissipated when he realized she wasn't there, that they hadn't found her. His emotions translated themselves into anger, and he scowled at the screen, powerless and wishing Dean understood that. "I can't tell you where she is, Dean—I can't see her like I can see you—"

"Well _find her_!" Dean cut him off urgently, and in the background, Sam looked troubled. "I'm_ trying_," Cas told them, attempting to hold back on his anger and frustration. He didn't want them to know how worried he was, because if they panicked, they might not be able to find her in time.

Sam came a little closer, leaned down, his face closer to the screen. Several bars of static ran down across the image. "Hey Cas, there was this weird beam of light just now and—"

"Stay away from it," Cas told him immediately, urgently, leaning closer to the screen, speaking fast, because he wasn't sure how long this connection would remain. "That was Zachariah. He's searching for you—you can't say yes to Michael and Lucifer if you're dead, so Zachariah needs to return you to your bodies."

Sam frowned, glanced at Dean, puzzled. "What's so bad about that?"

Castiel's jaw clenched tightly at Sam's thoughtless question, and he wasn't able to remain as calm as he'd meant to. He spoke louder than he meant to, harsher too. "_What's so bad_ if Zachariah finds you before you locate your sister—" he looked away from the screen, mouth in a hard line as he paused, "is that she _stays dead_."

Shock filtered across the brothers' faces. "_Explain_." Dean commanded with a deadly glare.

Cas didn't want to—he considered lying, but realized it was too late, that he'd let it all slip out already, and perhaps the truth would motivate them better than anything else, anyway. Still, speaking it out loud was difficult for him. It meant he had to confront it. "There's... there's no reason for Zachariah to send Alex back. None."

"What? Why?" Dean asked, looking stunned completely, all of his anger washed away momentarily, and in its place, fear.

Castiel couldn't look at the screen when he explained. "She's not important to heaven, Dean—she's not a vessel or a—"

"But you said she had a guardian angel thing!" Sam protested, and Cas looked up at the screen again, saw Alex's twin looking so disillusioned and let down that Castiel had to look away again, stricken with a guilt he could not even begin to fathom.

He explained in a dazed kind of tone. "Yes, I thought so—but Heaven assigned no new protector, I would have known... I don't know why, but either Heaven is ignoring the guardianship order or… or it no longer stands at all." Sam and Dean looked entirely shocked, as if their worst fears had been realized. Castiel's gaze faltered once again. "And as we all know... I… I failed to keep her safe."

"Yeah no _shit_, Cas," Dean snapped, and he yanked himself back from the screen, scrubbed his face with the palm of his hand as if he were trying to gather himself. He walked completely out of frame and then there was a loud crashing sound, like Dean had thrown something. Sam glanced at his brother in awkward embarrassment. Cas struggled to remain calm himself, addressed Sam, who so far was keeping his wits about him. "In fact, Sam—if Zachariah finds you, finds Alex, he may use her as leverage. To motivate Dean into saying yes to Michael."

Offscreen, he heard Dean curse loudly. Sam shut his eyes for a brief second, a muscle jerking in his cheek and he pinched the bridge of his nose, then seemed to make a visible effort to remain calm, focused, looking back at the screen tersely. "Okay Cas, just—how do we get her back to the land of the living?" His question was a good one, but Cas was silent, wordless. He didn't _know_. Wait. Maybe… Castiel grew urgent, realizing this was probably the very best chance they had. "You need to find an angel. His name is Joshua."

"Who the hell is Joshua?" Dean asked, his angry face once again taking up half the screen. "He can help us, I think," Castiel told him. The screen jerked, fizzled. "The rumor is, he talks to God."

"And what does_ that _have to do with anything?" Dean demanded, his tone accusatory, like Cas was foolish to suggest they do such a thing.

Castiel grew even more frustrated, barely able to contain his helpless anger—this was their _only option_, their _only chance_, and Dean wanted to question him about it, as usual, wanted to do things his way, wanted to waste precious time arguing when they needed to be trying to get Alex out of Heaven while they could, _save_ her while they could! Cas glared at the man's image on the screen and spoke brusquely, didn't bother concealing his anger. "You think maybe—just maybe—we should find out what the hell God has been saying? That maybe someone who talks to God might know more than we do? Maybe an angel _that close _to God could _help us_?"

Dean looked inconvenienced, rolled his eyes slightly. "Jeez. Touchy."

Taking a deep breath, Cas searched for resolve and patience, but found very little. "Please," he said tensely. "I just need you to follow the road, to find Alex, and then take her and yourselves to Joshua. _Quickly_."

"But how do we_ find _her, Cas?" Sam asked. "Can't you come help us?"

"I would already be there if I could be," Castiel told him, feeling defeated. "I'm unable to return… they've cast me out." Castiel glanced to his side, where Alex's body was, and with growing urgency, he looked back at Sam. "Just keep looking, and _hurry_. She's there, somewhere in Heaven." He again felt her soul flickering, half there, and looking down in deep affliction, because he couldn't be certain she was there, at all. And he told them. "I think."

"You _think_?" Dean repeated, his voice rising rapidly. "Heaven seems kind of big, Cas! How the_ fuck _are we supposed to find her with Zach on our asses and all of Heaven looking for us?!"

"_Dean_," Sam said, and his brother let out a heavy, deeply frustrated breath through his nose, glanced at Sam, then back at the screen, waiting for Cas to reply. Castiel could see how alarmed Dean was, and identified with him—looked at him intensely. "Follow the road. I think she's near it, somewhere."

"What _road_?" Sam asked, leaning in closer. Another burst of static distorted the picture for a couple seconds.

"The Axis Mundi," Cas said, speaking swiftly. "It's a path that runs through Heaven—different people see it as different things. For you, it's two lane asphalt. The road will lead you to the Garden, which is where you'll find Joshua. And Joshua—he can take us to God or tell us where to find him, he can send Alex back." The television began to fade out, Cas felt the connection weakening, breaking. Becoming urgent with alarm, Cas gripped it tightly on either side. "Hurry, Dean!" The television set died out completely.

Cas drew back just slightly looked at the silent TV, the sudden absence of any sound shocking to his senses. Would Sam and Dean be able to find her? Would Joshua be able to help at all? Were the rumors that he spoke to God even _true_? What if Zachariah found the brothers before they found Alex? Castiel stood up, his heart hammering unpleasantly, his limbs feeling light and unsteady. He felt such a strong need to be be there, in Heaven, tearing it apart to find her and rescue her, bring her back to where she belonged. But he was cursed to stay here, doing nothing, completely ineffective.

He looked at Alex and his feelings of helplessness bubbled up into sheer, unadulterated anger, into panicked and blind rage. _He could have prevented this._ He shouldn't have left her, even for a second. He'd been so selfish to avoid her because of his feelings, his inability to manage them. And now look what had happened—he'd been so intent on changing the future he'd seen in 2014 that he had left her unguarded and she'd died anyway, and _sooner_. This was his fault! Momentarily out of control, he turned and angrily grabbed the wooden chair sitting right there, sent it flying into the partition beside Sam's bed. The chair and partition were both destroyed, demolished, and Cas stared at the damage done, breathing heavily for no reason, remembering when he'd seen himself wreck the cabin in 2014. The cabin he and Alex had shared. He'd seen that version of himself do that and hadn't recognized him, but now—now he was stilled, knowing why that version of Castiel had done that. Understanding completely. And wondering how the horrors of that future could even happen if she stayed dead now. What was this? Some curse that hounded Castiel and Alex? That any future would end with Alex dying while he either caused it or stood by and let it happen? He looked down at himself, saw her bloodstains on his trench coat. His throat seized up.

And at that very moment, he thought he could hear her, feel her, like she was calling to him. He looked around, alarmed—but then there was nothing. Had he imagined it? He waited, stock still, listening hard. But there was still nothing. His mind was overcome with despair. And too lost, too confused, too lonely to bear any of it, Castiel sank again down to sit beside Alex, and buried his face in his hands, feeling to much for anyone to bear.

* * *

_Cas? Are you there? Where are you? I need you..._

Alex is in the darkness again, complete, utter darkness—right where Zachariah left her hours ago. Or at least it _feels_ like hours. She's on the ground, not sure if she's dead or alive. She can feel the dew-wet grass underneath her hands, brushing up against her clothes and soaking her knees. But the darkness, the darkness. There's so much _nothing_ here, and she feels like she can't breathe, like if she isn't careful, her mind will slip out, float away, leave her blank and empty and hollow. She wonders why Cas hasn't come for her, and thinks maybe he can't. Hopelessness, loneliness, despair overcome her again, wave after wave crashing over her, each one beating her down more and more.

After Zachariah caught her, he'd demanded to know where Sam and Dean were—she'd insisted she didn't know (and then told him to kiss her ass, she wouldn't tell him where they were even if she did know). Zachariah had looked at her in thorough annoyance, then told her it didn't matter, he was going to find them, it was just a matter of time. He dragged her along with him through a couple of heavens—the first one, Sam's: she watched Sam get his acceptance letter to Stanford and literally punch the air in excitement, grin at the letter, re-read it a bunch of times, do a dorky little dance. Then Zachariah had pulled her out of there, into another heaven, one of Dean's: where a twelve-year-old Dean had attempted to bake the twins a birthday cake at Bobby's and it had been half burnt and lopsided—a cake with melting icing and a barely legible "Happy Birthday Twins" on it—Dean had run out of room to write with the icing and the word Birthday was split into two lines, the word twins started off huge, but the s on the end was small, going off the edge of the cake completely. Zachariah had taken her out of there before she could see Dean present it to herself and Sam.

He'd spirited her to another heaven, still holding onto her with his iron grip—he'd taken her to a memory she had from her twenty-first birthday—and Alex had realized this must be one of her heavens, because she remembered this well. Dean had insisted on taking her to a bar because she was finally the age to drink legally, but she hadn't wanted to go—it's not like they had ever honored that law about drinking, anyway. She'd been drinking since she was fourteen—that and with Sam not there, away at Stanford and hadn't even called them that day… birthdays were painful, a reminder of what was missing, what was broken. And Dad, of course, was nowhere to be found, off on some job. So Dean had went, bought a bunch of liquor, driven them to a park in the middle of the night, cranked up the music really loud.

This is the heaven Zachariah took her to, and she couldn't see herself in the memory, only Dean—coaxing an invisible her out of the Impala, insisting she get drunk with him, telling her 'just because your big sister Samantha is all kinds of douche doesn't mean you should pout around,' and he then dragged the invisible her out onto the grass when 38 Special came on… _I'm so caught up in you little girl! _Dean lip-synced along ridiculously, whirling an invisible dancing partner around as he made dramatic faces and danced embarrassingly bad on purpose, pivoting his hips around like a girl would, pursing his lips in goofy concentration. _And I never did suspect a thing! So caught up in you, little girl, that I never wanna get myself free. _Dean stood back and did air guitar solos, clearly aware of how stupid and funny he was being, looking pleased with himself, then grinning at the space in front of him widely, genuinely. That space was where she'd been standing. Off to the side and watching the scene play out, Alex remembered that's when he'd cracked her, that she'd finally given in and smiled at that point, at the air guitar solos. And she remembered how happy she had felt at that moment, because she'd realized how lucky she was to have someone like Dean who cared, who loved her like that. Who went out of his way to pull her out of the dumps. Dean then hugged the air in front of him and Alex looked away, at Zachariah accusingly. That was a private moment and him seeing it hadn't felt right.

Zachariah had stood back, looked at the scene with condescension, like it left a bad taste in his mouth. "Don't look at me in that tone of voice," he'd told her sassily. She looked at the angel who had given her throat cancer, had taken Sam's lungs, had given Dean stomach cancer.

"You're not funny, asshole," she told him flatly, and he looked at her squarely, narrowed his eyes in distaste, looking like someone who was ready to give a lecture. "You know, that mentally incapacitated idiot in the trench coat should never have given you your voice back." Alex looked at Zachariah in total shock. He shrugged, facetious and wincing sympathetically. "You're very unappealing to begin with, add in the bad attitude and all the stupid comments… not doing it for me, Alex." He chuckled. She opened her mouth to speak and nothing came out. Zachariah grinned at her. "Lucky for me, I'm like a remote control... and you always have a mute button." He laughed and sighed gustily. "What does he see in you? The things he gave up to do that for you. Heaven knows why. Well. Heaven _doesn't_ know why, but, it's just a saying, you see."

He suddenly looked to his left, like he could hear something. "Ah _ha_. Gotcha." And without another word, he'd disappeared, and then so had everything in front of her. It was like if an angel weren't with her, she couldn't see or hear Heaven at all. She'd been in sudden total silence, total darkness. So now she laid there, curled up face-first on the ground, breathing hard, trying not to panic, worried about Sam and Dean, not sure how much time has passed or if she can stay sane much longer. She focuses on good memories, tries to stay calm, focuses on not trying to make a sound, because if she's reminded that she _can't, _she might break down completely. She thinks of Cas, remembers when he hugged her in Gabriel's hell world. She tries to remember how that felt, focuses on remembering how it felt to be held so safely and securely. She wants to cry but she refuses to. If she ever sees Castiel again, she can't imagine ever being able to let go of him.

Without warning, she's suddenly yanked from there, and is standing beside Zachariah, blinking against the brightness—Sam and Dean are in front of her, being held back by two guys in suits. Their faces register total shock at her appearance. Alex sees a third angel, a woman, who hangs further back. They're in a house that is lit in unpleasant, unnatural green light. There are brick walls where windows should be. What the—Alex is totally disoriented and confused, everything is too bright and close and Zachariah claps her on the back roughly, startling her. "Ah look! The youngest, least attractive Winchester." Alex looks at him, dazed, feeling stuck in place. "We were just visiting with Mommy," Zachariah tells her.

"Alex!" Sam says, and Dean is struggling against the guy holding him. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, she's fine…" Zachariah answers for her. "A little _mute_ at the moment but… hey, we all have our off days, right?"

Dean looks shocked, then entirely enraged. "You son of a _bitch_!" he roars, and Zachariah chuckles mildly. "You fix her _right now_!"

"Or _what_, Dean?" Zachariah asks, amused. Dean breathlessly, angrily stares him down as Sam stares in abject shock and horror at his twin who is silent and stone-faced.

Zachariah feigns intense thoughtful concern. "Ya know boys, funny story. Alex here? Seems she has _no heaven_." He pauses, clearly enjoying the brothers horror. "I mean, I saw one of them and it was melting, coming apart… and the other ones, they just disappear completely if she's alone... now what do you suppose _that _means? _Huh_!" He smiles, like he knows exactly what it means, and Alex looks at him in abject terror. Why wouldn't she have a heaven? Is that why Heaven went dark when an angel wasn't around?

"What the hell you mean, she's got no heaven?" Dean demands, looking as terrified as Alex feels.

"Just what I said. Little sister here is _defective_, Dean." He grabs Alex roughly, who promptly kicks him in the leg… then makes a face of pain. She'd forgotten for a minute. _Friggin' angels!_ It's like kicking a solid metal structure. "Am I supposed to say ouch?" Zachariah asks her then chuckles, pulls Alex to him, strokes a hand down her bare arm, his touch distinctly sensual, sexual. She struggles a little, turns her face away, revolted and also jarred—when had her jacket disappeared? How had Zachariah done that?

"Didn't like it when I did this to Mom, did you?" Zach asks Dean, smiling a wicked little smile. "How about to your little sister?"

Alex grits her teeth together, realizing what he's trying to do—Zachariah is such a stupid douchebag and it's working, making her brothers angry—Sam looks away, unable to watch, Dean struggles madly, looking like a caged bull—but Alex is just annoyed, frustrated, royally pissed off. She imagines the various ways she could stab Zachariah if she had an angel blade. "Leave her alone," Dean threatens in a deadly tone.

"Make me!" Zachariah says, grinning idiotically, and waves over the female angel. Her brown hair is clipped up neatly behind her head. She's pretty and looks early forties and is wearing a business suit like all the other angels. She takes a hold of Alex—she's strong as hell—Alex gives her a death glare, unable to break away, but trying anyway.

"You're going to do what I say, boys." Zachariah says and goes over to Dean, casually… and then slams his fist in Dean's stomach. Dean folds over with a pained groan. In unison, Sam and Alex fight against the angels holding them. "I've cleared my schedule, Dean. I have all eternity, and, _oh yeah_, I have the power to say if Alex here lives or stays dead." Zachariah looks at the angel holding Dean. "Get him up."

The angel lifts Dean up again and Zachariah punches Dean again. Sam struggles against the angel holding him, and Zachariah's front of indifferent amusement has faded into something bordering like anger. He holds an accusing finger up at Dean, whose face is twisted in pain. "Let me tell you something. I was on the fast track once. Employee of the month, _every _month, forever. I would walk these halls and people would _avert their eyes_!" The house rumbles and shakes, affected by his rage. "I HAD _RESPECT_!" Zachariah rages, then pauses, smiles facetiously. "And then they assigned me you. Now look at me." He chuckles, his air of amusement back again. "I can't close the deal on a couple of flannel-wearing maggots and their useless sister? Everybody's laughing at me… and they're right to do it. So! Say yes, don't say yes; I'm still going to take it out of your asses. It's _personal_ now, boys, and the last person in the history of creation you want as your enemy is me. And I'll tell you why. Lucifer may be strong, but I'm… _petty_. I'm going to be the angel on your shoulder for the rest of eternity. I'm gonna make you _howl_."

Zachariah is pleasant again, turns to the angel holding Alex. "Naomi, if you please."

The woman angel grabs Alex's wrist and twists it, bends her arm back at an odd angle, and Alex winces in pain as the pressure mounts—she'd be groaning, no, wait, ah, _screaming _now if she were able, but no sound comes out. Zachariah holds up a hand, as if to say 'wait' and the angel Naomi stops, holds Alex there, grimacing in pain as Dean and Sam watch, helpless. Zachariah looks at Dean and walks to him, looks down his nose at him. "Dean, we may be in Heaven, but I can put that kid sister of yours through Hell. I say the word, her arm is broken. It'll hurt, bad. But it'll be nothing, it'll be a blessed _relief _compared to all the other things I'll break in her."

Dean's expression is murderous, and he opens his mouth to reply. Zachariah socks him in the gut again, harder than before, and Dean makes a horrible sound, doubled over.

"Excuse me. Sir?"

Everyone turns at the sound of a new voice—a slight, older black man stands there,, clasping his hands in front of him plaintively. Zachariah seems surprised, then annoyed. "_Joshua_?" he asks in disbelief, then seems to remember himself. "I'm in a _meeting_." He says and gestures toward where Dean is leaned forward in pain, held by an angel, where Alex is still about to have her arm broken.

"I'm sorry," the newcomer says politely. He has a pleasant, rasping voice. "I need to speak to those two boys."

"_Excuse_ me?" Zachariah asks in total shock, and takes a couple steps closer.

"It's a bad time, I know, but I'm afraid I have to insist."

Zachariah chuckles darkly now. "You don't get to insist jack-squat."

"No, you're right. But... the boss does." Joshua doesn't back down, just stares at Zachariah unnervingly. "His orders."

The Winchesters all look at each other now—is he talking about _God_?

"You're lying..." Zachariah says, but sounds uncertain.

"I wouldn't lie about this. Look, fire me if you want. Sooner or later, he's going to come back home and you know how he is with that whole... wrath thing."

Zachariah is silent, then reluctant, a little embarrassed sounding. "Fine, but you don't need _this _one, do you?" He gestures to Alex, placatingly. "I mean, come on—she's sort of useless."

"Sorry. You aren't to touch a hair on her head." Joshua seems to grow a little taller, his expression grows less pleasant. "Now… restore what you've taken from her. And _leave_."

Zachariah looks at Dean and Sam, then Alex—expression extremely foul. He looks back at Joshua, who stands firm, his expression almost threatening now. And then with the fluttering of wings, Zachariah and his three angel goons disappear. There is a second of surprise when this happens, and then Dean is moving across the distance between himself and Alex, grabbing her up into a huge, almost painful hug, and she can feel him shaking. She shuts her eyes, holding on tightly, and for the first time being here in heaven, she feels okay. And suddenly she's crying, so relieved, and when she cries, she can hear herself making sobbing sounds, and she cries harder—her voice isn't gone anymore. "Hey, _hey_!" Dean says, his arms tightening, a hand on the back of her head protectively. "I gotcha, you're okay." He is letting out a long, relieved sounding breath, and he suddenly sounds emotional, softer. His voice breaks a little. "You're okay." Alex's eyes are shut tightly, she has her face buried in the front of his jacket shoulder.

Sam is there too now, he has a hand on Alex's back, he's looking at her in concern—last time she saw him, he was laying dead and bloody in a motel room and Alex is suddenly crashing into him too, hugging him hard, so, so relieved. He returns the hug gently. "You okay?" he asks her quietly, drawing back, searching for her gaze. She nods and she wipes off her cheeks, focusing on calming down. "Yeah. Yeah, I am now."

The three of them all look at each other, then they remember the other person in the room. Joshua watches with a soft smile, patiently, and when they finally look at him, he looks at Alex, approaching slowly, his clasped hands separating, a hand coming toward her. "It's time for you to go back, dear."

She looks at her brothers, confused. "But…" she says. However, she never gets to finish the sentence. Suddenly she feels herself rushing through time and space, torpedoing back toward the surface, back to life.

* * *

Castiel sat on the bed, looking at Alex. He had lost track of how long it had been now. Hours. He hadn't heard from Dean or Sam. No one. He was losing hope—whatever little amount of it had remained.

At this point, he was beginning to wonder if it were over—if Alex Winchester would stay gone forever. It was a terrible thought, and as he gazed at her face, he thought that she was so beautiful to him, even in death. He looked down, where her hand rested beside herself, so close to his. That hand had punched him, had pushed him away from her, had taken his mistrustfully right before he had defied heaven for her—the hand had showed him pinky promises, that hand had touched his face and pulled him close. That hand was still, lifeless, alone. Mournfully, he covered that little hand in his own. She was so, so small and the skin of her hand was cold. He shut his eyes in anguish, his fingers curling around her hand, the tips of his fingers reaching the inside of her wrist. And then he stopped, frowned, opened his eyes. Was that… was that a faint pulse?

Daring to hope, he looked at her face, confused—and then her eyes suddenly snapped open, she gasped loudly, she rocketed upwards—she was frantic, shaken, eyes darting all over the place, like she couldn't see, or couldn't focus. Even though he was totally shocked, Castiel managed to anchor her, stopping her, his hands holding her arms firmly and then she seemed to see him, focus, and then her expression broke completely. "_Cas_!"

She fell into him almost, embracing him tightly, burying her face in his neck, her arms around his shoulders, she was crying and shaking, and Castiel was shaking too, his arms already around her. He closed his eyes, holding her there in his arms tightly—he was finding it hard to breathe, so overcome with this monsoon of relief and complete surprise—he bowed his head down, burying his nose and mouth in her hair, he held a hand against the back of her head, not daring to let go, and without knowing exactly why, he achingly pressed a kiss there against her hair, and then another. He felt jarred and anchored all at the same time; all he knew was that his Alex was alive, precious, and here with him. He felt one of her hands gripping the back of his neck tightly, he heard her taking trembling, calming breaths, he felt her shifting, looking up at him and he drew back just slightly—looked into her warm hazel eyes once again—and part of him that had been ripped away was restored.

And then her eyes slid away from his, over his shoulder—and her expression went cold when she saw where Sam and Dead laid still and dead. She was trembling again, and looked down at herself, saw the blood, the holes in her tank top where the shotgun's buckshot had ripped through. The blood, mostly dried, all over her. She was shaking again, looking alarmed. "Why-why aren't they alive, Cas?" she looked at her hands, one of which was covered in dried rust-red blood. "Why d-did Joshua send me back and not them?"

"I'm not sure—" he replied, finding his voice, but she didn't seem to hear him, she seemed to be going into shock, looking down at her stomach, at the blood stains. "Oh God—" she stood up shakily, unevenly, and Castiel stood with her, but she was already walking off toward the bathroom, stumbling oddly, not seeming to have total grasp over herself. "I can't—it needs to get _off _of me—"

Cas, following closely, alarmed, concerned as she blundered into the bathroom—he wasn't sure what she was doing. There was a large shower there, the walk-in kind with a sliding glass door. It was already open and she careened into the shower, crying now, fumbling with the shower dials. She held her hands under the stream of water, seeming unable to wait for the blood to wash off. The rust-red blood gave way to bright pink skin underneath as the water pelted her. Castiel hovered right outside of the shower door, uncertain, as clothes and all, Alex turned away from him, leaned against the shower wall with her palms pressed flat against it—she was completely soaked now, and her hands came to either side of her head. "It's not—this can't be happening."

Castiel felt as though he should go to her, but he remained outside the shower, watching her, concerned. "Alex—they'll be sent back. They're vessels."

She shook her head, looked back at him. "But what if…" she seemed to lose some physical strength and she suddenly pitched to the side, stumbling—and Cas darted forward, caught her before she could fall forward. Her hands grabbed his forearms tightly. The warm water streamed over him now, too, soaking his trench coat, his head, his hair. He needed to know what had happened to her to shake her up so badly—instinctively, he felt like there was something more to why she was so frightened and rattled... he knew that she'd been drifting, and there was a sudden, awful suspicion that something horrible had happened to her up there. Filled with unmeasurable concern, he looked into her eyes pleadingly. "What _happened_ to you?" he asked, rife with worry.

She squeezed her eyes closed and put her face there into the front of his shoulder. She was crying loudly. "I don't… _everything_, Cas! Why can't I…" she drew a trembling breath. "Why can't I just hold it _together _anymore?" She pulled back, looking at nothing in particular, looking ill and dazed over. "I-I used to be stronger than this." Her expression crumpled into misery, she shook her head, crying again. "Cas, I can't _do this _anymore!" Water pooled at their feet in the bottom of the shower, faint red from the blood washing off of her.

"Do _what_?" he asked, his anxiety literally paining him at this point.

"Anything, _everything_," she sputtered through sobs. "I've tried," she choked out, "I've _tried_, but I can't."

He took her face in both his hands, demanding her gaze and she stopped, met his gaze, out of breath, despairing. "You can," he said, and her expression softened, she stared at him, then her hands came and grasped his wrists, she looked down, focusing on breathing. And even though Castiel felt so much horror, had so many questions, he remained still, composed, trying not to think of how desperate he was to comfort her—or maybe it was himself—with a kiss. He wasn't strong enough to move away, wasn't weak enough to drift closer. Not until she leaned in and rested her forehead to his wearily, sniffed softly. His hands still held her face, and one of his thumbs brushed across her cheek whisper-soft. Her eyelashes dripped—were those tears, or was it water? And she trembled, her thumbs touching the bare skin of his hands, stroking downwards once, a touch that seemed tender, intimate to Castiel. And his breath was caught in his throat, he was thinking of how he could never, ever see her like that again—dead and gone and lost forever—that he felt he would do anything, _anything_ to keep her alive. And not because of a decree of Heaven, not because of an order. This need to keep her safe was no longer anything except his own conviction. A conviction that ran deeper than any ocean on earth, reached higher than the sky itself.

He looked at her then, slowly, hesitating. Realizing. Realizing how ever since he saw her first, everything had been building toward this moment. The moment when he realized how much she meant to him and how much that scared him. He realized she had wedged herself deep in his—heart? No. He had no soul or heart, did he? All he knew was that she had imprinted herself upon his mind and spirit, she had _ruined him_ for anyone or anything else, she had changed his mind about everything. There was truly no going back. She had become what was most important to him—this beautiful human mystery of half-smiles and dark, haunting eyes—she was what was most important. Maybe he'd believed it was wrong, once, but now? Today? He knew this connection between them was real and lasting, undeniable and strong, wasn't wrong, _couldn't _be wrong. It was solid ground under his feet.

And right now she was so close and he felt _so much_ for her and she was afraid, wrecked, sad, and _he needed her, _needed to know she was really back, really alive, really there with him. This urgent feeling transcended all that he understood. And he had the distinct impression that she, too, needed him in the same way, that she was waiting for him. And he felt like he couldn't hold back any longer, couldn't keep _her _waiting a second longer. He hesitated, inched closer, and then pushing the small, ever-weakening inner protests aside, pressing his lips to Alex's urgently, lingeringly. Relief and warmth flooded him, he felt her hands mirror his—one on each side of his face as she returned the kiss. She relaxed against him, and he against her, a million worries and fears banished at the touch of their lips to each other's. Achingly, they parted just slightly, just for a second, then came together again in unison, Castiel's hands sliding down, his arms now circling her, his hands pressed into her back and pulling her to him tightly, securely as he pressed another tender, slow, simple kiss against her lips. The warm water showered over them, steam curled and rose around them.

They drew back, just slightly, and for a moment everything felt right, for a moment, they just _were_… and then Alex's expression changed, she suddenly looked frightened. "I'm, I'm sorry," she said, sounding like she was beginning to panic again. Her hands now gripped his shoulders tightly. "I'm sorry," she said again, and he didn't understand, he frowned. And then she begged him softly, "D-don't leave?"

He felt he could literally break from her desperate tone, from what she implied, because he realized what she meant. Every time they had been close like this… he'd left her. But how could he, especially right now? "I _won't_," he told her with no shortage of grief at himself. He held the side of her face now, his thumb against her cheek again. "I won't," he repeated. Compelled and saddened alike, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. Their eyes closed at the same time, Alex's expression becoming deeply affected, as if she might cry again—Cas's eyes closed tightly, brows knit close together in earnestness as he held the kiss there to the wet skin of her forehead. Her arms were now lightly resting on either side of his waist, her hands clinging to his soaked trench coat.

Castiel held her tightly, breathing her in almost, the reality of having lost her sweeping over him all over again, causing his chest to spasm in pain. "I won't leave you again," he promised her, his mouth still there, close to her forehead. "Not without saying goodbye."

He looked down at her then, and she was looking up at him in torn hope, slight disbelief. And as he looked at her, he felt keen awareness that whatever their connection, their bond had been before… it had just become even deeper with the promise he'd made. Should that have panicked him? Perhaps he had lost his mind, but right now, it didn't. He just was so thankful that she was alive that other thoughts and worries paled in comparison to his relief. And then the euphoria faded—she seemed to falter in his arms, her expression grew strange. "I don't feel…" she said, and her legs went out from under her—Cas's arms, already around her, easily held her up, kept her from falling. She looked dazed again and Cas looked at her anxiously, asked, "Are you all right?"

She clung to him weakly, eyes darting back and forth, looking down and nowhere in particular. She shook her head, grimaced. "No I—I think I need help," she said, and sounded sullen, unhappy about it. Hearing her ask for help set Castiel at unease—he could tell her body was giving out, and it terrified him. What was wrong with her? What had happened?

He pushed the emotions and fears away, focused on doing what he could. He didn't know what had befallen her in Heaven and might not for awhile, not until she was calm, okay. He picked her slight frame up easily, and saw that she was a little embarrassed—this _was_ the same girl who always insisted on doing things on her own, who was insulted when her brothers treated her like she were weaker. So now, having to depend on him, that _would_ bother her. He said nothing, just carried her back into the main room—her eyes remained downcast, except to flicker up to his face a couple times. Her arms loosely circled his shoulders, he could feel her breathing in and out steadily. He'd picked her up like this earlier, but she'd been dead—the thought, the memory, disturbed him all over again.

Carefully, he set her down on the vacant bed—she was dripping wet—they both were—and Cas stood back, narrowed his eyes in thought. "Towels," he said, then turned around, went back into the bathroom and found some—but before he picked them up, he looked down at himself. Without moving or even blinking, he manipulated the atoms surrounding him, banished the water molecules that had settled into the fabric of his clothing, darkened the strands of his hair, beaded on the surface of his skin. He was dry instantly. He had considered doing the same for Alex, but instinctively, he felt that she wouldn't want that. Any reminders of Heaven or angels might be detrimental to her right now. He wondered again what had happened to her there. He needed to know. He was worried, and deeply. Heaven wasn't the same place it had always been.

He returned to her with towels and she looked at him, distracted, upset. She'd been staring over at Sam and Dean's bodies, her expression tense and afraid, sad. Castiel set the towels in a stack beside her, took one from the top. She looked up at him, seeming ill and weak, reached for the towel… but Cas wrapped it around her shoulders for her. She blinked rapidly, seeming taken aback, like she hadn't expected that. Castiel brought the far ends of the towel together, in front of her, circling it around her like a cloak. Inside this circle, she took hold of the towel, her hands just opposite of his. Their eyes met briefly. She looked so entirely unguarded. Her hair was dark and dripping, he could see the soaked strap of her tank top where the towel hadn't quite covered.

He thought hard, thinking through the sequence of events he associated with human cleansing rituals, recalling what came next. "You need dry clothes," Cas said. "My bag is—" she started, but he had already seen it, recognized it, and took it up from where it sat on the floor a couple feet off. Again, she looked at him in surprise. He set it beside her on the bed and unzipped it slowly, began looking for a suitable article of clothing, then stopped. "Is this... inappropriate?" he asked, suddenly realizing he wasn't sure if going through her clothing was acceptable or not. She was hiding a smile at him, looking at him with soft, open eyes. "_So_ inappropriate," she said quietly, but that little smile and the amusement twinkling in her eyes told him she was joking. He felt himself smiling back at her softly, relieved that she was beginning to calm down, regulate. She was beginning to look like herself again.

He found a tank top—she wore those all the time. He found a pair of jeans. He pulled both items out slowly, examined each article carefully, thoughtfully, then laid it out. Alex watched him with interest, first looking at his face, watching his eyes and subtle eyebrow movements, then looking at the way his hands held her clothing. She grimaced slightly then, looked up at him in faint disorientation, seeming to become aware of pain. "Cas… my whole body feels like… like it's weighed down, like my muscles don't work anymore." She sounded tired. "Is this…. I dunno, normal?"

Pausing, troubled, Cas looked at her. "I'm not sure," he told her honestly, thinking about it. "I don't know many people who've returned from death." He found a pale blue button up shirt with long sleeves, laid it on top of the jeans and the tank top he had selected.

Alex looked down, letting out a soft little huff of air. "Yeah, guess dying and coming back isn't normal to begin with, is it. But... Sam and Dean have both done it before." She drew in a deep breath, let it out, sounding strained and apprehensive. "Maybe it was just my turn." She looked toward her brothers again, then Cas stepped sideways, into her line of sight, gently demanding her gaze. "You're going to be fine, Alex. I promise."

She looked like she wasn't sure about that. "I can barely even lift my arms now. It's getting worse. I feel so _tired_." Her eyes went to the clothes he'd laid out beside her, then down at herself. She looked exhausted, like the idea of changing her clothes seemed impossible. But she let the towel go, and grabbed the bottom of her tank top, pulled at it weakly for a couple seconds then gave up, her expression twisted into a grimace. She looked upset. "Cas, I literally can't." She looked at him pathetically, deeply upset. "My arms feel like Jello."

Cas narrowed his eyes, scanning the reserves of his mind and memories. But he found no knowledge of this 'Jello' she mentioned. He narrowed his eyes even more. "What's... Jello?"

Her troubled expression softened. "It's wiggly stuff that you eat." Cas tilted his head to the side slightly. That sounded unappealing. Alex shrugged pitifully, not looking at him anymore. "Basically… I can barely even make a fist." She was moving her fingers in and out, watching them with a deepening frown. "How long was I… uh, dead?"

"Hours," Cas answered. Although somehow it had felt like eons to him.

Alex seemed surprised, distracted. "It felt so much longer… like a day. Maybe_ two_." She sounded so deeply disturbed and once again, Castiel felt concern ripple through him. She sighed heavily, not noticing his distress. She was looking at the clean, dry clothes beside herself longingly, and Cas hesitated, then offered. "I can help you." Her eyes flicked up to him and he suddenly felt shy, almost. "Get changed," he added, for clarification. She looked down at the soaked buckshot riddled, bloodstained tank top she was wearing, and she was quiet for a long minute, her eyes sliding over toward where Sam and Dean's bodies laid. She looked back at Cas finally, and he could tell she was apprehensive. "Okay."

His tongue darted out to wet his lips—a physical reaction he had never had before. He was a little surprised at himself, then refocused. He grasped the bottom edge of her tank top with both hands, then looked at her in the eye, waiting for her to change her mind—but she just waited, returned his gaze. Her chest rose and fell a little faster than it had a minute ago. Castiel swallowed, then began to take her shirt off. His fingers grazed the bare skin of her waist, then her side where her ribcage was as he carefully peeled the shirt off of her. He kept his gaze respectfully averted when she raised her arms weakly and he pulled the shirt over her head, leaving her completely bare from the waist up. She hugged herself, watchful of him, a little breathless. He was very methodical and careful, dropping the destroyed tank top onto the floor, then taking the clean, dry one and holding it out in front of himself, his gaze over her shoulder and into far distance.

Alex watched Cas, not really sure how this was happening or what was wrong with her, just sort of going with it—she put her hands through the arm holes, feeling totally exposed and vulnerable. But Cas wasn't looking at her, he was staring hard at the space over and behind her left shoulder. She was more than a little in awe of his calm, his poise, his complete helpfulness. The shirt was on now, Cas was tugging it down over her still-damp torso, and then she was modest again. There was a lump in Alex's throat, and she wasn't sure why it was there. But looking at him right now, she loved him _so much_.

He was looking down at her wet jeans, frowning slightly. She followed his gaze, and realized what he was thinking. How was_ this_ going to work? She imagined it for a moment, Cas helping her out of the jeans, his fingers brushing against her bare thighs as he tugged them off... _Jesus Christ Alex! _She looked away, awkward, embarrassed at herself. "Can you just… angel magic me?" she asked, and he glanced up at her. His bright blue eyes froze her. For a second, they were both silent, maybe having forgotten everything completely. His eyebrows were raised, his forehead wrinkled up, his expression somewhere between concern, care, and studiousness.

"Yes, of course," he replied, his voice softer than before. He hesitated, then touched her lightly on the top of her thigh and Alex almost melted—he probably didn't know what kind of things a touch right there would do to her—it wasn't even scandalous, it was just knowing that was _him_, touching her… but then the sensation of her jeans suddenly being completely dry distracted her and surprised, she looked down at them. "Wow." She smiled softly. "You're kind of handy to have around." Understatement. But he was smiling back, a little crookedly, a little sadly. Again she was given to pause when she looked into his eyes. And then he picked up the button up shirt, helped her into that, guiding her arms through. She noticed he was putting it on her inside out but said nothing, just glanced at his backwards tie, smiling faintly to herself, heart kind of too full for her to know how to bear it.

He finished, drew back, nodded slightly, and Alex was physically weak, tired, exhausted but feeling overcome, looking up at Cas and feeling so entirely undeserving—what if he hadn't been here when she'd come back? Her voice cracked a little. "Thanks, Cas." Without even meaning to, she turned her head again, looked at where Sam and Dean laid. The fear that they would never return overcame her again. Where _were_ they?

"We can go somewhere else—" Cas suggested, looking at her, uneasy at her distress. He had backed up a little, was looking at her intently, a little uncertainly. Alex shook her head, raised her chin. "No," she said, resolving herself. "I need to be here when… when they come back."

_Which they __**will**_, she reminded herself, choosing to believe that Castiel was right. But she couldn't just keep looking over and seeing that—her big brothers dead, Dean staring up into nothing, Sam riddled in bullets. Both of them soaked in their own blood. It was one of the most horrible sights she'd ever seen, and every time she looked over and saw it again, she wanted to be physically ill.

With what little strength her muscles possessed, she she slid down into a sitting position onto the floor beside the bed, where she couldn't see the bodies of her brothers. Castiel sat down beside her without any hesitation at all, and she glanced at him sidelong, mildly surprised, again. He sat with his feet flat on the floor, knees bent up—just like she'd taught him, what seemed a lifetime ago. _God, he's changed so much since then. Or maybe I have. Or maybe both of us have. _The space between their shoulders was too much, but Alex remained still, thinking hard. She wanted so badly to tell him everything about what happened in Heaven, to ask _why_ it had been like that, to just be held by him forever. The shower… the kisses… maybe those should have confused her. But she understood now, and it was startling but also so entirely obvious, unavoidable. He loved her, she loved him. The end. All these things stood in the way, all these dark things hung over their heads, all these unknowns hung in the balance, but none of it could change what they felt. So, where did they go from here?

She glanced at him again, remembering how much she had missed his these past couple weeks, how angry and confused and hurt she'd been when he hadn't come when she called. It seemed so out of character of him to just ignore her calls, and she felt like there had to be more to it. "I… I called you a bunch of times, the past couple of weeks," she ventured, and he looked at her silently, guarded. Alex pressed her lips together, looked at him for a long minute, not understanding. "Why didn't you come?"

Castiel's expression was morose, he seemed to wrestle internally for a couple seconds. "I did. Every time." Her heart jumped in her chest. He looked down, his jaw tightened a little. "I didn't let you see me."

"_Why_?" Alex asked, and Cas's expression flickered in pain. "I thought… I thought I could protect you. I thought I could change things."

He sounded so guilty, so burdened and weary. "Cas…" she said softly, not sure how to reassure him. He shook his head slightly, looking ahead of himself with a hard expression. "I could have saved you from what happened here today if I hadn't been trying so hard to stay away..." he looked at her now, and his expression almost scared her, it was so intense, so emotional. "I almost _lost_ you."

She faltered under his gaze, shook her head, remembered Heaven, and there was a deeply unpleasant and frightened feeling in the pit of her stomach. "I _was _lost," she said softly, almost to herself. "It was all dark, and empty, up there… falling apart." It was too horrible to confront, it was too frightening to think about… "Cas, I didn't have a Heaven. The only time I could see anything was if I was with someone else." Cas looked shellshocked. Alex felt small, scared. "Does that… does that mean I'm supposed to end up in Hell? Or when I die… I'm just alone in the dark forever?"

Cas's frown was stern and hard. "_All _souls have heavens, even the ones that go below. It has to be a mistake."

Alex shook her head. It wasn't a mistake. It had happened, it had been real and so, so unnerving, so terrifying. "Zachariah said I was defective," Alex said, her voice wavering now as she remembered what he had done to her, what he'd taken, how scared shitless it had left her.

"Zachariah found you?" Cas asked, looking deeply upset and alarmed. Alex shut her eyes for a minute, memories of that turning her stomach again. "Yeah. What did he mean, Cas?"

The angel was just staring ahead of himself in blank horror, shaking his head. "You're not defective. You… can't be." He sounded at a loss, completely confused. Alex realized he had no idea why it would have been like that up there for her, and it left her even more frightened. Castiel always knew this kind of stuff. If he didn't know—who would?

Alex thought of her brothers—the one who had been to _Hell_ had a heaven! And Sam, too—the boy with the demon blood, the one who was the devil's own vessel. So why did that leave her with a heaven that had been coming apart at the seams… and disappeared entirely if she wasn't in the presence of an angel? Did it have something to do with what Crowley had been telling her? Maybe if she was the one who killed or destroyed Lucifer, it meant her soul just was destroyed and voided completely. Was that really where she would end up, forever? For eternity? Alone, in the dark, listening to the sound of her own heartbeat and breathing, losing her mind? She felt panic rising inside, she felt herself getting freaked out.

Cas was looking at her again, saw it. And she felt his hand on her shoulder, the shoulder closer to him. He seemed to be frightened too, but was pushing it aside, trying to comfort her, trying to steady her, and Alex needed him so badly. She held back her frightened tears. "Cas, I know that… I know that we can't," she managed, barely able to keep her voice even. "But right now I just need... need you… to _help me_."

He looked positively brokenhearted, convicted. "How?" he asked, simply waiting for her to tell him, but Alex shook her head, not able to put it into words. She weakly curled herself into his side and he seemed to realize—he moved himself closer, put an arm around her, a little awkwardly at first. Her cheek pressed up against the front of his shoulder, she held onto the lapel of his coat. She felt his face turn toward her, his chin just brushing her forehead. Her eyes fell closed, she just breathed. He was warm and solid, comforting. She could feel him breathing, too. She felt his chin lower, and she knew he was looking down at her now. She could picture the worried expression on his face. Her eyes opened, but she didn't move. Not yet. "I saw my dad. In heaven."

He went completely still. "What?" His deep voice reverberated through her, they were so close. Alex shook her head just slightly, and the fabric of the trench coat rubbed her cheek. "I don't know how, Cas, but it was him."

There was a long pause. "You're sure?"

She almost smiled now, suddenly feeling reminiscent. "Do you remember that time you came into my dream? The one at the amusement park? When you told me that… that you were the one who gave me my voice?"

"Of course." His voice was softer. Was that her imagination, or did he sound reminiscent, too? She thought about that time when Castiel had barged into her memory dream. "You told me you wondered what it might be like to have dreams," she said, her words full of quiet fondness. His chin moved against her forehead again, and she knew, instinctively, that he was surprised that she remembered that. "Anyway," she said, "That… that dream was the one really good memory I have with my dad. That's how he proved it to me. Well. That and he didn't know Dean's birthday."

"What did your father want?" Cas asked. Alex could hear the concern and worry in his voice. He didn't, after all, have the best impression of Dad. "To say goodbye," Alex said softly, growing reflective, deep things welling up in her heart. She breathed in deeply, shut her eyes for a minute. She felt Cas's arm around her tighten a little.

"You didn't tell me that before," Castiel said quietly after a moment, sounding reflective himself. "About what that dream was."

She felt him looking at her and she was quiet for a long minute, then she drew back, her eyes lifted up to his. "I didn't trust you then," she said softly. He looked back at her, seeming to be deeply affected by her words, and Alex was utterly wrecked by his closeness, his deep, soulful gaze. Even though she felt so weak, she reached up, her finger tips brushing against the collar of the trench coat, then the side of his neck. Her thumb rested against the scruffy edge of his jaw. _I didn't _love _you then._ His eyes searched hers, and he gently reached up, fingers curling around her hand in a way that could only be described as tender. His thumb swept across her knuckles, his other arm tightened around her, holding her there securely. "Tell me what happened," he said.

And safe there beside him, in his arms where she felt like she could belong forever, Alex nodded. She was ready to now. She took a deep breath, started at the beginning, remembering. "So. I died." she paused. How often did people get to say that? "And when I came to… on the other side, I was in complete darkness, couldn't remember anything about where I'd been before that. Then I could see this faint light in the distance…"

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ Oh my GODDDDD CALEX. I JUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH UGH AND… The plot thickens! Why doesn't Alex have a heaven?! And why I am up at 3:09AM to post this for you guys?! I didn't know the world existed this late at night… I'm so sleeeepy… anyway… this chapter is like so dear to my heart… it just totally wrecked me to write it! There are actually a couple more scenes from this episode that will be in the next chapter, but I really felt like ending it here was satisfying and beautiful… so hey, Sam and Dean will be coming back to life in chapter 30, and omg, what will happen thennnn!? _

_Also, curious to know what you guys thought of the switches in tense. I used present tense for Heaven, and past tense for earth. Just kind of felt cool and a little jarring to me, fitting to the circumstances._

_I want to say thank you to all you KICK ASS readers and reviewers. I am like seriously blown away by your support! You guys are totally amazing. Much love. The story just hit 300,000 words. Ummm crazy! :)_

_Oh yes, and classic rock songs were peppered throughout this chapter and maybe you're wondering what they were or wanting to listen to them… they are listed below in order of appearance! And they are all pretty excellent if I say so myself. _

_Knockin' On Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan_

_Paradise City by Guns N' Roses_

_Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival_

_Caught up in You by 38 Special _

_And I am totally dedicating Faithfully by Journey to Castiel and Alex in the last scene of the chapter. SIGH._


	30. The Righteous Man

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 30 / The Righteous Man

"_The children of Cain are gathered, to plunder and burn and slay: God was with man in Eden, but where is God today?"_  
- Charles Hamilton Musgrove

* * *

One second Alex is there, the next she's gone—and Dean looks at Joshua in confusion, in worry... then the house in which they've been standing… is suddenly gone. Replacing it is a verdant garden—a conservatory. Overhead a tall glass ceiling dome lets in sunlight, there are exotic plants, trees, and flowers crowding a small stone pathway. The air is warm, damp, humid, smelling of earth and ozone. Joshua stands at the bottom of some stone steps in front of them, and the brothers glance at each other, unsure what just happened. Dean feels especially rattled because a few seconds ago he was holding the sister he feared he'd lost… and now she's gone again. "This... is Heaven's Garden?" Sam asks, sounding a little confused as he goes down the stairs slowly, looking around in what might be disappointment. Dean follows him a little warily. Joshua has some pruning shears and is offhandedly clipping the gardenia bush he stands next to.

"You see what you want to here," Joshua explains mildly, interested in his work. "For some it's God's throne room; for others it's Eden. You two, I believe it's the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. You came here on a field trip."

"Yeah… I remember," Sam says, sounding reminiscent. Dean however is of a one-track mind and finding his voice again. "Yeah, good times," he interjects gruffly, sarcastically, looking at Joshua mistrustfully. "Where did you send our sister?"

"Back to her body, of course," Joshua says in his soft, rasping voice. He fixes Dean with a knowing gaze, pausing his task for a moment. "Don't worry Dean. She's alive and well."

"And probably freaked out as hell," Dean mutters, thinking of Alex, who has never died before unlike himself and Sam—Alex who will be sitting in the motel room with his and Sam's bodies—_Jesus Christ_, he hopes she's okay… it's bad enough with everything else that had happened to her today but Zach taking her voice—that was over the line, that was too much, and Dean is worried as hell for her right now. He can just picture her, alone and freaked out, not knowing why she's been sent back alone, maybe not knowing where he and Sam are. _God, what if she has no memory of heaven? What if—_

"I wouldn't worry," Joshua says, interrupting Dean's concerned thoughts. He's returned to pruning the bush in a slow, steady manner. "She's not alone."

Dean frowns, his thoughts halt and he doesn't understand, but Sam looks like he thinks he knows what Joshua means. "Cas?" Sam asks, and Joshua smiles as he trims a couple dead leaves away from the gardenia bush. "Who else? He _is _her guardian angel."

Dean makes a face, disgusted. Suddenly all these flowers and trees and sounds of birds are pissing him off. "Yeah he's _real great_ at keeping her safe, isn't he?"

"You sound unhappy about something," Joshua says, and the glib commentary is just about enough for Dean, who chuckles dryly to keep from punching something. "Pal, unhappy is putting it_ lightly_. And you know, while we're talking about things that piss me off… you got any idea why the _hell _my sister doesn't have a heaven?"

Joshua looks up from pruning, his eyebrows raise just slightly, he looks faintly sympathetic at this point. "Yes, actually. I know exactly why. But unfortunately... it's not information I'm privy to say."

There is a rush of righteous, indignant anger at that comment and Dean's blood pressure hits the roof, his protective hackles raise. "You friggin' _kidding_ me? You better tell me right now or I am gonna take your little gardening scissors and stick them right up—"

"_Dean_." Sam interjects a little loudly, giving his brother a look that says '_are you nuts_?' Unwillingly, Dean clamps his mouth shut. Sam's right. Probably shouldn't piss off the angel who can send them back to earth.

Joshua's expression is still calm, and he turns now, giving the boys his full attention, setting his pruning shears down. He clasps his hands in front of him thoughtfully. "Have faith, Dean. God makes all things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes."

"Well that _ain't me_!" Dean retorts angrily, and Sam grabs Dean's shoulder at this point, looking at his brother sharply. "Dean—can you just _shut up_ for two seconds?" And shaking his head, exasperated and barely hiding the fact, Sam looks at the angel, attempted civility, while Dean stews. "Joshua—you talk to God, right?" Sam asks.

"Well mostly he talks to _me_," Joshua corrects pleasantly, and the Winchesters share a significant look. "Well, we need to speak to him," Sam tells him. "It's important."

"Where is he?" Dean asks, and Joshua looks at him, answers in an oddly elusive tone. "On earth."

"Doing _what_?" Dean asks, mystified—that doesn't sound so good. And Joshua's indifferent answer further frustrates and confuses him: "I don't know."

Dean shakes his head. This is rich, this is _great._ Ever the patient one, Sam is staying cool, prompting Joshua again. "Okay, well, do you know _where _on earth?"

"No, sorry. We don't exactly speak face-to-face."

Dean looks at his brother, wondering if this seems as fishy to Sam as it does to him. Not even the _angels _know where this God dude is? This can't be right. "I… I don't get it," Dean says, thinking out loud, feeling disconcerted, confused. "God's not talking to nobody so…"

"So why is he talking to me." Joshua finishes his sentence for him and Dean waits expectantly. This better be good. "Well. I sometimes think it's because I can sympathize—gardener to gardener—and, between us, I think he gets lonely."

The hell kind of answer is that?

"Well, my heart's breaking for him," Dean says sarcastically, his barely contained anger boiling beneath the surface again. "Well, uh, can you just get him a message for us?" Sam asks, glancing at Dean disapprovingly.

"Actually, he has a message for _you_," Joshua says, and the brothers are both surprised, listening, waiting. Then both shocked by what Joshua says next. "Back off."

"_What_?" Dean asks.

"He knows already," Joshua says simply. "Everything you want to tell him."

"But…" Dean starts. "He knows what the angels are doing," Joshua says, cutting him off. "He knows that the Apocalypse has begun. He just doesn't think it's his _problem_."

"_Not his problem_?" Dean asks, totally blindsided, thinking this has to be some kind of joke or something. But Joshua is continuing, and growing more intense and assertive than he's been so far. "God saved you already. He put you on that plane. He brought back Castiel. He saved your sister from the future that was supposed to befall her." Dean goes still, not sure what Joshua is talking about with _that_ one, but the angel doesn't pause. "He granted you salvation in Heaven…" he turns to face Sam directly, "and after everything you've done, too. It's more than he's intervened in a long time. He's finished. Magic amulet or not, you won't be able to find him."

"But he can stop it," Dean says, not understanding, not _getting this_. "He can stop _all_ of it!" he's at a loss, shaking his head, not believing this can be true—there has to be some mistake. "So he sends Cas to rescue me from Hell because 'God has work for me' and now it's… what, too bad, catchya later, good luck with the Apocalypse?"

Joshua doesn't blink. "Pretty much."

"No, no… this isn't right," Dean protests vehemently, feeling tricked, feeling betrayed, because this was his_ last option_, this was supposed to be the answer to all the problems he's been facing. "You can't be serious…!"

"I am," Joshua states, blunt and blasé. And Dean's teeth grind together in frustrated, incredulous anger. "_Unbelievable_. So he's just gonna let _whatever_ happen and do jack squat about it? The hell kind of God _is_ he, anyway?"

Joshua shrugs almost imperceptibly. "Why does he allow evil in the first place? You could drive yourself nuts asking questions like that."

"Fucking coward," Dean mutters, shaking his head in repugnance, staring at the ground, nostrils flared and jaw clenched tight. "Can't even tell me in person that all the crap he's put me through was for nothing, that I'm on my own, that it was all some huge lie? Some _game _for him?"

"I know how important this was to you, Dean," Joshua says, and he looks truly empathetic, shaking his head shallowly. "I'm sorry."

"What, saving the world? Stopping the Apocalypse? You're _damn right_ it was important to me! Why isn't it important to _him_?!" Dean rages, but Joshua says nothing. Dean scoffs. "_You're sorry_. Yeah, _thanks_, that helps so much," Dean snaps cynically, then his mouth bears down into a thin, hard line. Suddenly he's feeling hopeless and emotional, beaten down and weary—all the things he's been trying to avoid feeling. "Forget it," he says, and attempts to save face, attempts to appear at ease and uncaring. "Just another deadbeat dad with a bunch of excuses, right? I'm used to that. I'll muddle through."

"Except… you don't know if you can, this time." Joshua says, and Dean falters, feeling caught out. "You can't kill the devil... you're losing faith, in yourself, your brother... you feel your sister slipping out of your grasp… and now this?"

Sam looks at Dean, surprised, maybe realizing just how desperate and depressed Dean really is—everything Dean has been trying to keep a secret. Dean avoids looking at Sam. "God was your last hope," Joshua states, and pauses, grows deeply sympathetic. "I just… I wish I could tell you something different."

"Yeah I bet you do," Dean mutters, but he's too burdened and worn out to put any fire into the words. "It's all the same damn story with all you winged freaks. Well lemme tell you, wishing never got anyone anything. So unless you got something helpful to tell me… just save it."

Sam glances at Dean but doesn't reprimand him this time, instead refocuses on Joshua. "H-how do we know you're telling the truth about all this?" he asks, and Joshua seems mildly affronted. "You think that I would _lie_?"

"It's just that… you're not exactly the first angel we've met," Sam says then cringes apologetically. "And… sorry, I just always thought God would _care_ about the world he created, the people he made. It doesn't add up."

"I'm sorry you feel that way… but I'm not lying. In fact, I'm rooting for you boys! I wish I could do more to help you, I do. But…" Joshua indicates the gardens surrounding them. "I just trim the hedges."

Sam is growing exasperated, and his eyebrows knit together, he wets his lips. "Come on man, if not for us, then for our sister—_help_ us," he implores earnestly, grasping at straws now. "She's not even _part_ of this."

Joshua looks at Sam directly, eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly. "I wouldn't be so sure about that, if I were you." The Winchesters are both stunned into silence at the vague comment, and Joshua shakes his head slightly. "I'm sorry. I'm really quite incapable of helping you any further. And it's time for you to go home again. I'm afraid this time, won't be like the last. This time, God wants you…" he lifts a hand up… "to _remember_."

There's a whooshing sound and a bright light blinds them. Dean feels himself throttling forward, he feels like he's underwater and his lungs are bursting, and then he's shooting upwards, gasping for air, alive again.

* * *

Alex was where she'd been for the past thirty or so minutes—curled into Castiel's side as they sat on the floor at the end of the bed. Her head rested in the space between his shoulder and neck, and the side of his head tilted down toward hers, seemingly of its own accord—he didn't remember doing it consciously. Alex had told him everything—seeing her father and the phone booth, the darkness of heaven when she was left alone, Zachariah's appearance and what he'd done, said—the heavens he'd taken her to—being left in the dark for what felt to her like a day—Zachariah's confrontation with Dean and Sam—his attempt to use Alex against her brothers. And then Joshua's appearance. Cas was struggling to process all of it—but one part especially. "And then," Alex continued, as Castiel stared at the area in front of himself with a deep frown, "Joshua sent me back."

She became quiet, and Cas mulled it all over. She'd told him everything calmly, factually, if a little distracted sounding. He knew she was wondering what he was, and that she was much more afraid than she sounded. "I don't understand..." Cas said slowly. He sounded disturbed, confused. "Why you wouldn't have a heaven." It was one of the more terrifying things he had ever been told and he was completely baffled—now the way her soul had been drifting and impossible to track down… now it made sense, but it was the kind of sense that only sent more terror racing through his mind.

Beside him, he felt her breathing in and out and for a moment, he shut his eyes, just focused on that. In the darkness caused by his closed eyes, memories came to mind; he remembered seeing Alex as she lay dying in the future, remembered her asking if there were a heaven. _Cas… do you... do you think there's still a Heaven up there?_ she'd asked, then looked at him with teary eyes that could break a heart into two pieces. He'd seen himself tell her that _yes, of course there was_. And then later he'd grabbed Chuck in a rage, shouted at him that there was no heaven, that Alex was gone forever. Distress coursed through Castiel's veins. What was he supposed to do? _What was he supposed to do_? Cas's eyes opened.

The only hope that remained was that Dean and Sam would return after speaking with Joshua and have some answer, have some word from God. Perhaps the reason God hadn't answered Castiel personally was because he'd done the wrong thing to defy Heaven. Perhaps God would speak to Dean, who was, after all, the righteous man. Cas clung to this final thread of hope despairingly, and had to forcefully quiet his mind.

Alex shifted slightly against him and Castiel looked down towards her, feeling a fierce determination overtake him. "I'm going to find out why," he told her grimly. And he was. If it was the last thing he did, he would find out why she had no heaven awaiting her when she died.

"How can you find that out?" Alex asked. She sounded kind of hopeful and apprehensive at the same time, and she felt tense beside him. She was scared, he realized… he felt his protective instincts surge forth. He didn't want her to be afraid. "I'm not sure," he answered honestly. "But I will." The arm that he had around her tightened, his other arm came across their bodies so that he now held her securely in the circle of his arms. He'd learned some time ago that it made her feel better when he put his arms around her… and reflected briefly that it made him feel a little better, too. After a couple seconds, she relaxed into him, burrowed into his side a little more—and knowing she wanted to be close to him sent indescribable feelings rushing through him. Her hand and arm had been resting across his stomach, but now slid around him, pulling him closer than before. He felt her small hand against his side, underneath where his arm rested, and he breathed out slowly. Memorizing the way all of this felt. This moment was stolen and fleeting… and the future it would lead to was dark. But perhaps, he reflected, it was too late altogether. He couldn't seem to tear himself away from her, in any circumstance. He needed to be close to her as much as he needed to be far away—but he was losing the fight completely. He couldn't seem to stay away.

Neither of them said anything for a long moment. He could feel how very small and fragile she was. How breakable, how mortal. And he began to think of the stark reality, the truth of the matter: Dean would die someday. Sam would die someday. Alex would die someday. But Castiel? Castiel would stretch into eternity endlessly. Alone as he always had been. He couldn't imagine going back to that existence again. Not after all of this.

But he would have to, wouldn't he? The fact remained: this was the way things were. She was human. He was not. And she would end, like all humans did. He thought, for the first time, that even if he succeeded in seeing her through this lifetime, she would die anyway. Of cancer? Of a heart attack? Of old age? Such deep sadness overcame him at this thought. And if she wasn't in a heaven, if she was drifting and in the dark and if he could never find or see her again... his chest tightened. He didn't want that. Ever. It was unthinkable and perverse. He imagined the universe, missing one bright spot of light. This human girl. Why did she matter like this to him? He had seen billions of humans but _none_ of them had ever mattered like she did... why did the thought of her no longer existing leave him feeling empty, panicked, afraid? He wanted to live in a way where he would never be parted from her. And this thought, this realization, stilled him. It seemed that fate was determined to push himself and Alex together, only to rip them apart brutally again, only to use their union as the cause of her demise. _What was he supposed to do_?

His strained, stressed mind turned to another unsolved mystery. What had John Winchester been trying to tell Alex about Azazel? _The danger isn't past._ What did it mean? Castiel knew nothing about this, had no idea what John could have meant—he could only conclude that John was either mistaken or that Azazel had concealed part of his plan much better than Heaven and Hell had guessed. Castiel's thoughts bothered him, deeply. All he could think, over and over, was _what am I supposed to do_?

No answer came. No revelation. He was completely confounded. Turning his head toward Alex, Cas did the only thing he really could in the moment, which was to assess her wellbeing. She seemed more relaxed than she had been when she first came back, she was calm now. This was one small mercy in the face of a monsoon, but it soothed him. She had barely been able to move her arms thirty minutes ago, but now she held onto him tightly—he thought she was definitely recovering from her temporary state of weakness, was regaining her strength. But he asked, anyway, to be sure. "Do you feel any better than before?"

"Well, I couldn't run a _marathon_, but yeah," she said. "I think standing up might be in the cards again." Her humorous tone became softer. "But… I don't want to. Not yet."

He felt another rush of something strong in his veins when she told him that. He understood the sentiment. Her hand moved to his chest, palm flat there—he remembered when she'd done something similar… they'd been in the freezer… but this time she wasn't being sensual, she was pressing herself up, pulling back enough to look him in the eye. But he couldn't help but recall, through that touch, what had happened between them before… he swallowed, suddenly a little disconcerted, wondering how she kept doing that to him… affecting him so completely, mind and body alike. As she drew back enough for him to see her face again, he was struck again by how beautiful she was. She was looking at him intently, questioningly. "What did Zachariah mean, Cas? When he said you gave up things to… to give me my voice?"

Cas looked at her hesitatingly. He'd assumed she would ask this when she told him what Zachariah had said, a few minutes ago... and he thought about the answer. He wasn't sure that telling her would be beneficial… in fact, he wasn't sure if she could _take _the truth of what he'd surrendered to restore her voice. If he told her what had happened, she would be horrified, she wouldn't understand. Her features showed concerned disquiet when he said nothing. "Why don't you want to tell me, Cas?" she asked slowly, and now she looked almost afraid. "What did you _do_?"

Cas looked down. Her hand that had been wrapped around him was now resting loosely on his knee and he was oddly compelled to cover that hand with his own. The skin was warm, he could feel her pulse underneath his fingertips. His eyes flicked to hers, and he held her gaze for a couple long beats. "Nothing I wouldn't do again," he answered her. Her face changed, the worry was replaced with some kind of caught off guard expression.

And then there was a loud gasp on the other side of the room—Sam shot up in bed, and then Dean, too. Alex looked at them in shock, and Cas froze, unsure what to do. Sam was panting loudly, regaining his breath, and Dean too—the difference was, Sam didn't seem to be seeing anything at all—he was flailing a little, off balance and reeling—but Dean was staring right at Alex and Cas, his expression rigid. His eyes met Cas's and his expression darkened… but he said nothing, tore his glare away, and focused on Sam. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Dean grabbed Sam by both arms, steadied him, seeming to be much better off than his brother was.

Even as Dean steadied Sam, Cas and Alex separated—Cas stood, helped Alex stand, too, gently holding her hand in one of his, her arm in the other. Dean glanced their way, saw it, and his grip tightened on Sam. Guilty, Cas looked down.

"_Whoa_," Sam commented breathlessly, oblivious, staring unseeingly into Dean's chest. "That was… intense." He looked up at his brother, expression became concerned. "You alright?"

Dean's jaw tightened and he let go of Sam, glanced their sister's way. "Define alright." He stood up, seemed to realize he wasn't at full capacity—swayed just slightly, stopped, frowned—then took a halting step toward Alex and Cas. Dean stared at Alex, hard, glanced at Cas, then looked at his sister again. "You okay?" He asked her gruffly.

She seemed a little reluctant to speak with her brother, who was now looking at her thoroughly, taking in her damp hair, the way she was holding onto Castiel's arm for support. Alex met her brother's gaze falteringly. She sounded different than a minute ago, when it had just been herself and Cas. "I'm fine, Dean."

Her brother's eyes narrowed. He didn't seem to accept her answer. "She seems to have had a rougher time than the two of you," Castiel observed, to which Dean gave him a hard look. "Yeah, maybe that's because she had no heaven—you wanna _explain_ that Cas?"

Silent, Sam was watching it all unfold with an earnest, concerned expression. Cas looked at Sam, and then Dean, frowning, knocked off balance. "Joshua didn't tell you why?" he asked, feeling strange, like his stomach was sinking in sick confirmation of what he'd already suspected… but hadn't wanted to believe.

"Oh he _knew_," Dean retorted angrily, "but he just wasn't saying." Dean finally looked at Alex again, whose scared expression seemed to settle him slightly, and he relented, looked back at Cas, a little less angry now. A little more despairing. "So you don't know, either?"

Alex sat down on the edge of the bed, at this point, frowning at the floor, seeming to feel disillusioned. Cas looked at her in concern, then saw that Dean was watching him intently, sharply, and Cas felt caught, attempted to wipe his face of any expression. He approached Dean, attempting to appear calm, neutral. "No, Dean, I don't know. If I knew, I would have told you a long time ago." For just a moment, Dean's expression was open and pleading. Like he had no other possible idea of what to do or say. And Castiel shook his head, feeling the same way. The men looked at each other silently, then Cas turned away, walked toward the smashed wall partition, trying to think, trying to _reason_.

Dean and Sam both noticed the smashed partition at the same time, looked at each other frowning slightly, then in unison looked at their sister for an explanation. She was staring at her lap unseeingly. Didn't notice her brothers at all. "Everyone… has a heaven," Castiel said softly, still facing away. He sounded disturbed to his core.

At this point, Sam stood up, crossed the room and went to his sister, put a comforting arm around her as he sat down beside her. He watched her, his forehead wrinkled up in worry. She didn't look at him.

"Everyone has a heaven," Dean repeated. "So why the hell wouldn't _Alex_ have one?" he asked, clearly trying to remain calm but just barely managing. "I mean, you gotta have _some _idea, right?"

Castiel turned around, harrowed. He looked at Alex for a couple of long seconds, his expression tense, worried. Then he met Dean's expectant stare sadly. "Dean—I don't."

The two men stared at each other again for another long moment, Cas sad and empty, out of answers, Dean the same but _angry_ about it. After realizing Cas wasn't going to say anything else, Dean made a strange, sarcastic face. "Great. This is just the _best day ever_," he muttered, shaking his head and looking off to the side at nothing in particular. Cas's expression screwed up in confusion. How could he say that, even in jest or cynicism? Dean was now pacing, agitated, rubbing his hand across the lower portion of his face, appearing to be trying to sort his thoughts. Sam and Alex were watching their brother with guarded expressions, and to Castiel, in that moment, the twins looked very alike.

"Well, all of that _great news_ aside—" Dean said, and stopped, looked at Cas directly. "Your friend _God_? He doesn't give a rat's ass."

"What?" Cas asked, unsure what Dean was saying to him. And what did a rodent's posterior have to do with it? Dean threw his arms out, gesturing angrily, seeming to be at his wit's end. "You heard me, Cas! God doesn't care, doesn't want to help, doesn't think this whole mess is his problem. So where do we go from here, huh?" his anger wavered into desperation.

Alex was looking at Dean in total, stunned disbelief and then she looked at Cas—their eyes met for a brief moment and Cas shook his head, his frown deepened. He looked back at Dean, who was now watching him hawkishly. "Joshua told you this?" Cas asked slowly, trying to make sense of what he'd just been told. It couldn't be true. It _couldn't_.

"Yeah, Cas," Sam interjected softly. He seemed sympathetic. "He said God won't help us." He looked at Cas sadly, who looked back at Dean blankly. Dean's grim stare silently confirmed Sam's statement, and Cas felt as if he'd been physically struck, as if the breath had been knocked out of his lungs.

Silent, choking it down, Cas felt himself shaking his head—this wasn't right. With his arms hanging limply at his sides, he stared down at Dean's shoes unseeingly. "That can't be true..." he managed to say, even as he was thinking of how God hadn't answered his begging pleas earlier that same day. How God had been impossible to find all this time. It _could _be true. In fact, somewhere deep down maybe he'd already known or believed this. But he didn't _want_ it to be the truth. He turned around, put his back to them. "Maybe… maybe Joshua was lying," Castiel said, and he wished one of them would agree with him. Give him a small shred of hope to cling to. But he heard Sam breathe out heavily. "I don't think he _was_, Cas. I'm sorry."

Cas turned slightly to see Sam, who looked deeply compassionate. "But that makes no _sense_," Alex protested, still there beside her twin and looking at him, completely shattered and baffled. Sam just shook his head faintly, looked at his sister sadly. "I know. But that's what Joshua told us."

Alex met Cas's waiting gaze and he had to turn around, unable to bear the way she looked at him—not when paired with everything else on his shoulders right now. He had failed the Winchesters, for one, because he'd told them this was the answer, that this would save them all. And the father he had always believed in, served, _existed_ for—didn't care. Wouldn't help them. Castiel felt defeated, crushed, and looked up, one final despairing thought left in him. "You son of a bitch," he said, and waited to be struck down. Nothing. "I _believed_ in…" he trailed off, not even sure why he was doing this. There was no sign, no reply, nothing _at all_. God had left a long time ago, hadn't he? And Castiel realized he was truly alone in this, truly on his own.

Cas turned around again, feeling ashamed to face all of them. Alex had stood up, was looking at him in deep concern that he didn't deserve, and he looked away, dug in his pocket, drew out the amulet he'd borrowed from Dean. "I don't need this anymore," he said heavily, overwhelmed with sorrow. "It's worthless." He tossed the amulet and Dean caught it. Cas stared at the necklace in Dean's hand. "I'm finished. It's over."

Dean looked at Cas with genuine empathy, suddenly feeling a surprisingly kindred connection with the angel—absent father who you believed in with everything you had… only to be let down and disappointed time after time? Believing in something that turned out to be a lie, a trick? Yeah. He got that. Cas had put all his faith and effort into what turned out to be a dead end—and the depression, the broken sorrow Dean heard in the angel's voice echoed what Dean lived with every day of his damn life. Dean almost thought of saying something to Cas, of trying to lift his spirits somehow, of attempting to comfort him in some small way—but then Cas looked at Alex and the suspicious hackles raised again as he watched—the angel was weary and sorrowful as he looked at Alex—he seeming to be waiting for her to do something. Dean watched in mounting confusion as he watched what looked like a freaking _silent conversation_ take place between the two. Then Alex truly shocked Dean when she nodded just slightly, her eyes full of emotion and empathy. "It's okay, Cas." Like she was _giving him permission to leave_. And Cas turned, walked a few steps away. Dean's mouth was hanging open slightly. What the actual hell?

"Cas. _Wait_," Sam implored, standing up too. Cas turned slightly, speaking to no one in specific. Sounding depressed as hell. "I'm going to find out why Alex has no heaven."

And then without any further anything—Cas was gone.

Sam seemed angry, threw his hands up slightly, then ran a hand through his hair. Alex stared at the space Cas had occupied, her expression strange. Dean stared down at the amulet in his hand, the reality of his life sinking in. God wasn't gonna help. So where the _hell_ was there left to turn? Everything was going wrong for him right now, _everything_! Dean thought of when he'd first come back and seen Cas holding his sister like that—arms wrapped around her, not enough space between them, Alex's head nestled into his shoulder—and that jealous, protective, possessive, scared shitless feeling came over Dean again. What the hell was Alex thinking? Didn't she know she was playing with fire and would be consumed by it? _Destroyed_ by it? And didn't she know that he _couldn't let that happen_? That he wouldn't stand by and let her sign her life away because she had some weird crush on her guardian angel? Dean's grip tightened on the amulet in his hand, so tight that the little barbs on it dug into his skin.

This amulet had been given to him by Sam, when they were kids. Dean had always worn it. It had been one of his most prized possessions. But now he felt like that was a trick, too. Why had all of Sam's heavens… his happy memories… been times spent away from family? Dean felt disillusioned, like maybe he was the only one who really loved his family—that Sam and Alex were just humoring him, pitying him. He thought of what fake-Mom had said in heaven to him… it wasn't _really_ her, he told himself. It was some trick Zachariah conjured up. He knew it then, and he knew it now. Still, her words cruelly replayed in his mind.

"_Everybody leaves you, Dean. You noticed? Mommy. Daddy. Even Sam. Next is Alex. Mark my words, sweetie. Everyone you ever thought you could count on… is going to go away. You ever ask yourself why? Maybe it's not them. Maybe it's you."_

Maybe it was him. _Next is Alex_. And Dean knew exactly what she'd leave him for. The angel in the trench coat. The barbs on the amulet dug in even more to his skin and Dean wanted to throw it at a wall. "We'll find another way," Sam said, approaching him and sounding determined, harrowed. "We can still stop all this, Dean."

Dean bit back a thousand sarcastic retorts, just focused on the amulet. "Yeah? How."

"I don't know, but we'll find it. You and me and Alex—we'll find it. We always do."

"Yeah, sure," Dean muttered, and turned, threw his amulet into the trash can, looked at Sam pointedly. Sam was looking at the trash can, hurt. Dean ignored it. "Did you ever stop to think, Sam, that maybe, just _maybe_, we won't always be able to figure this shit out? That someday we're gonna meet our match?" Dean was hopeless. "Come on. This is pointless. We are in _way_ over our heads. Today proved that."

"It's _not _pointless," Sam protested, and Dean just felt more and more anger churn in his stomach. Dean turned from his brother, bitter. "And yeah, while we're on the subject of being in way over our heads…" he fixed Alex with a pointed look. "You wanna tell me what_ the hell_ is going on with you two?" it was a gruff and impatient question, Dean raised his eyebrows and gave her a look that said 'I'm waiting'—Alex looked at her brother in utter disbelief. Everyone in the room knew what Dean was asking about.

"Dean—" Sam protested, not giving Alex a chance to answer, and Dean rounded on his brother angrily. "_No_ Sam! This has gone on long enough—and I need a damn explanation!"

Sam did that thing he did where he attempted to smile even though he was clearly mad as hell. "Come on man, she just died and came back to life—you think you can_ give her a minute_?" Sam was no longer smiling, he looked disgusted.

"Do I look like I got a friggin' minute, Sammy?" Dean demanded wrathfully, getting in Sam's face. "Do I look like I got all the time in the world? Don't you see how _jacked up_ this is? Some thousand-year-old guy is taking advantage of your sister and you got no problem with it? I mean talk about _pedophile_!"

Sam's eyebrows shot up high, Alex looked at Dean in complete shock from where she stood. "Have you lost your _mind_?" she asked angrily, and Dean whirled, invaded her space. "Well you sure as hell have lost yours!" he snapped. Sam grabbed Dean by the shoulder, forcefully turned him, kind of putting himself between his two siblings. "Dean, just lay off a little!" Sam said forcefully, "I mean you're being absolutely—"

Dean yanked himself out of Sam's grasp. "Absolutely _what_, Sam? Responsible? _Sane_?" Dean was on a tirade at this point. "Why don't either of you see all the levels of _wrong _here? He's walking around in a borrowed meatsuit that's _married_ by the way—and if he ditches out of it again, what then, huh?" Dean was shouting. "He's not even _human_!" Dean gestured wildly in his sister's direction. "Alex has a crush on this angel because he's the only guy who's ever shown her the time of day—but it's dangerous and gets her killed and I'm _not letting it happen_!"

Alex moved forward, grabbed Dean hard by the front of his jacket, startling both of the brothers. "You need to shut your damn mouth _right now_," she told him in a trembling, anger-filled voice. She shoved him away brutally, and he looked surprised, stunned even—as she stared at him balefully, mistrustfully—clearly wounded. "I mean, what is this…? Be-a-heartless-asshole day?" she asked, trying to cover with sarcasm. Right behind her, Sam stayed put, looking at Dean with deep disappointment. "You don't even know half of what happened to me today," Alex continued accusingly, "and then you come in here acting like you own me and my life and you're the only one who gets to be there for me?" She shook her head, rolled her eyes in clear irritation, seemed to realize something. "This is ridiculous. I don't owe you any explanation," she said stonily. And Dean was shocked. Who was this girl? They had _never _had secrets, the two of them. She'd always confided in him, and he in her. What was happening? But instead of appealing to her, he just reverted to his normal M.O.—which unfortunately was douche supreme.

"Like hell you don't," he retorted. "I keep you safe. _Me_. That's my job, that's the one thing I haven't screwed up yet." He relented, thought about it. "And I guess I fell down on that today, huh." He wasn't trying to throw a pity party, but he realized it sounded that way once he said it. Annoyed with him, Alex looked at him sullenly. "Forget it. We're all fine."

"Fine?" Dean asked peevishly, flying off the handle again, unable to deal with everything inside his mind. "Your two brothers are Heaven and Hell's most wanted and God won't help and that's _fine_?"

"_Jesus Christ_ Dean!" She suddenly exploded. "Do you have to bring that up?!"

"Well excuse me for living in reality—" he started, but she held up a hand, calling for silence, looking tense and incapable. "No. I just—I can't. I can't think about that right now," she said harshly.

"Well too bad Princess, because looks like it's the main event and you got front row seats," Dean retorted angrily, and immediately got one of the most righteous bitchfaces from Sam, ever. "Dean!" Sam exclaimed, and his voice was shaking now, too. "She's _scared_! Come on."

Dean blinked, stopped, realized Sam was one hundred percent right, and felt regret and self-loathing wash over him. He realized his mistake. As usual, his temper had gotten the better of him, and he let out a deeply ashamed breath, suddenly couldn't look at his sister. "I'm sorry," he said, clenched his jaw tight, managed to look her in the eye, just for a second. "I'm sorry."

"Sure you are," she said darkly, and Dean got mad again. "I _am_!" he insisted, frustrated to maximum capacity at himself, the world, his family—everything. "Geez. Guess I can't do anything right," he said sarcastically, "unlike Castiel."

"Dean…" Alex looked tired, exhausted even, she drew a heavy breath, grudging. "Cas was, was here. He helped me, calmed me down. He's..." she trailed off, looking deep in thought, and Dean felt another rush of premonition come over him. "If you say 'my friend' so help me, Alex…" he warned.

He got a weird look from his sister. "And what if I do, _Dean_?" She asked challengingly as she stepped a little closer, almost in his face—did she _want _to fight? He didn't appreciate the lies or her acting like there wasn't anything there between herself and Cas. Dean's expression darkened, soured. "Oh _come on_, Al. I'm not an idiot. I see the way you look at him," he accused. "The way he looks at _you_!"

"Just let it go, Dean!" she shouted, then she glared at him angrily, took a couple beats, became disgusted. "I am so _tired _of you treating me like this," Alex muttered, and in a show of aggression reminiscent of her younger years, she pushed him away with both hands—Dean felt almost murderous at this point. "What, like I care about whether you_ live or die_?" he shouted, bouncing back from where she'd shoved him, bearing down on her wrathfully—only to be stopped by Sam, who grabbed his shoulder, gave him a 'cool off, Dean' look. Dean again yanked himself out of his brother's grasp, then looked at both of his siblings in total disbelief, feeling completely alone and misunderstood and ganged up on.

"All I've ever done is look out for this family…" he said, shaking his head hollowly. "And _this_ is the thanks I get?"

He grabbed a clean shirt and stalked out, slammed the motel room door behind him, fuming. And then he heard footsteps behind him. "Dean!" He whirled, keeping his face hard. It was Alex. "Where are you going?" she demanded, and for a second, Dean thought about letting it go. The rage, the jealousy, all of it. Because he couldn't stand to fight with her. But bitter, angry, hurt, he just kept his face hard, pushed her away with finality by turning around, continuing on his way. "To get a damn drink," he threw over his shoulder. "If you need a shoulder try cry on, why don't you call your little angel boyfriend instead?"

There was a long silence—Dean didn't look back. But he heard the tears in her voice. "You're such an asshole!" she shouted at him. He set his mouth in a hard line, kept walking, didn't look back. If he did, she might see how much he hated himself, too.

Sam was changing shirts quickly, tossing away the bloody bullet-riddled one and pulling on a black one, about to follow after Alex and Dean—and then she came back in and Sam froze, he looked at her in surprise, his features etched in earnestness and concern. Where had Dean gone? She was crying, but trying not to show it—looking down at away, hardening her face. "Alex, are you—"

"Don't Sam," she interrupted tersely, shaking her head as she plopped down onto her bed, the only bed in the room that wasn't covered in blood. She faced away from him, her shoulders slouched in exhaustion. She sounded like she was barely keeping it together. "I can't. Please just… leave me alone." She curled up on the bed on her side, looking very small and alone, and Sam decided not to do what she'd said. He went around to the other side of the bed where he could see her face, and crouched there beside the bed. His face was now level with hers, but she was staring at the sleeve of her shirt kind of blankly, not returning his gaze. "Look," Sam appealed gently. "I know you need some space but… if you need me… I'll be here."

His twin's eyes—eyes that were the exact same color as his—flicked up to him. She looked kind of like she was despairing. "Why haven't you told Dean?" she asked him falteringly. "About… about what you saw?"

Sam's eyebrows went up a little—"do you _really_ have to ask?" They _were_ talking about Dean, weren't they? The same guy who had just flipped his shit over seeing Cas _hugging_ Alex. How would he have reacted if he'd seen them, _Jesus_, dry humping each other's brains out? Sam looked at his conflicted sister, more serious than before. "I think we both know he can't hear about that," Sam said. "_Ever_."

Alex's features crumpled. "Why is he like that? Why does he have to… to be that way?"

She sounded about as lost and let down as Sam felt. Dean just wasn't himself lately, he was really losing it in some ways, wasn't he? Sam shrugged, trying not to give in to despair. "That's... just Dean," he said helplessly, and looked at his little sister sadly. She looked really torn up, and he instinctually felt it was because she didn't know what was going on anymore. For the past few weeks she'd been withdrawn, tense. Maybe it was because of Cas. Sam wondered, and his eyes rested on hers again. He was worried about a lot of things right now, but especially Alex. "Look—I don't really know what's going with you two—" he began, "but it's obvious to me that Cas cares about you. A lot." He paused tensely. "Just… be careful, Alex."

She met his gaze hesitantly, and she looked like she wanted to tell him something, but she remained silent, then looked away again. Sam frowned lightly, then smiled. "Your shirt's inside out, you know."

One corner of her mouth lifted up in a fond little smile. "Yeah," she said softly, her eyes flickering over the sleeve of her shirt, where the inseam showed. "I know." Sam looked at the sleeve, trying to see what she was seeing. But it was just a shirt.

Alex's little smile faded, she became troubled again, drew in a deep breath. Sam wished she wouldn't carry her burdens alone. He put one of his massive hands on the side of her head comfortingly. Her hair was damp—had she been in the shower? Sam wanted to ask her, pretty intensely, about Cas, and exactly how close he was to her, what their relationship was—but he didn't think this was the right time. His sister looked depressed, grief stricken.

He didn't feel very sure of himself at all anymore, but for her sake he tried to sound like he was confident. "We're gonna get through this," Sam told her. "All of it. We'll figure it out."

She looked at him once again, but this time, she looked like she was filled with the same dread, the same hopelessness he felt deep down. "We might not, Sam," she said, and she seemed close to tears again. She looked terrified, actually. "_We might not_."

A couple blocks away, at the same moment, Dean was sitting in silence in a mostly-empty bar… realizing he didn't even _want_ anything. _Comfortably Numb_ was playing on the crappy bar sound system. How frigging fitting. The sound of pool table balls cracking as they hit against each other sounded kind of like thunder. Reminded Dean of Heaven all over again.

_Where could he turn now? _There was literally nowhere left to turn, and Dean felt like he was drowning, held underwater, losing his hold over life. _What the hell was he supposed to do?_ Dean propped his elbow up onto the bar counter, put his face in his hand wearily. Listened to Pink Floyd singing exactly what he was feeling.

"_I can't explain, you would not understand. This is not how I am... I have become comfortably numb."_

* * *

Fergus Roderick McLeod—that had been his original name, before paying up on his soul deal and going to Hell, before becoming a demon, before taking the name Crowley. It had been a pitiful little existence he'd led in his previous, human life—but he supposed all legends had to begin _somewhere_. Crowley smiled to himself. He was just getting started—he had grand plans for himself, grand plans for Heaven, Hell, Earth. There was the small matter of getting the devil out of the way, but he'd find a way. If those Winchester idiots couldn't make it happen, Crowley would find someone who could. He swirled the whiskey in his glass, strolled to the other end of the room of his house and set the glass down for a moment, perusing the book titles there with mild interest.

And suddenly he felt an unwelcome pull—he was being summoned, yanked out of his home and into a new location. The warm home he'd been in was gone, replaced by… he blinked, trying to make out his surroundings. It was dark here—a subway tunnel? That was new. He stood in the middle of a single-rail subway tunnel, somewhere deep inside of it. He heard water dripping, the sound echoing in the large, damp space. He looked up, saw a huge devil's trap spray painted across the arching ceiling—and a damn good one, too. He turned around to see what pathetic sap had summoned him here, all air and attitude—then faltered slightly. _Not _who he had expected to see.

The angel in the trench coat stood in front of him, his expression deadly. "Ah, blimey," Crowley said, recovering fast, not letting his surprise show. "If I'd known we were going to be meeting, I'd have worn something _special._" No sooner had the words left his mouth than he was suddenly seized, turned, and smashed up against the far concrete wall—still inside the large radius of the devil's trap, and now in a good deal of physical pain. "What did I do to _you_!?" Crowley protested, and he felt the angel's grip tighten. His face was close, eyes dark, glittering with aggression.

"Why does Alex Winchester have no heaven?" Castiel demanded and Crowley forced himself not to react, not to move—he didn't let it show that he had _no idea_. Instead he smiled smoothly. "If you really want to know—" he drawled casually, "let me go."

The angel stared at him wrathfully for a couple more seconds—then shoved hard, let go. Crowley made a great show about brushing off his lapels. "Thank you _very_ much," he said, a little sarcastically. He eyed the clearly angry angel with interest. No heaven? He'd never heard of that, but thinking quickly, Crowley decided this would be useful to him, that he could use this to his advantage. This angel was clearly quite invested in the human girl. Well, Crowley had already known _that_, but exactly _how_ invested he was remained to be seen. Guardian angels _did_ tend to become attached to their humans. But this one, this Castiel—he seemed more attached to his charge than what was normal. Crowley remembered the little show he'd seen them putting on, all mouths and breathy panting and gyrating—he smiled softly, chuckled lowly. Yes, very _interesting, _this.

"So, you want to know if she's on the special guest list downstairs," Crowley said smoothly, and pretended to be thinking, then changing his mind. He grimaced slightly. "I'd hate to spoil the ending, though."

He should have known what _that _comment would get him. Castiel grabbed him again, smashed him back into the wall again, harder. "Tell me, _now_," the angel demanded with increasing aggression.

"Jesus Mary and Joseph, they weren't kidding about you and her!" Crowley protested, feeling red in the face and wondering if his suit would be ruined or not. It was Dolce and Gabbana for God's sakes!

"Is she supposed to end up in Hell?" the angel practically snarled, and Crowley decided, for the sake of his suit, to come clean. "Come on mate, how's a two-bit demon like me gonna know that?"

Castiel narrowed his gaze at Crowley, seeming surprised… then resolved. "You'll find out."

"Oh, shall I?" Crowley asked challengingly. "Yes," the angel replied in a dark, low, gravelly tone. And then his eyes went to his right. Crowley followed his gaze. "Or… you'll have to find a new vessel."

From somewhere far down the track, there was the sound of a horn. And the faintest, growing light. Crowley looked at the angel in surprise, scrambling suddenly. "Oh, really, _come on_. All of this for some little mortal human? Some little speck on the page?" he realized that was the wrong thing to say—Castiel slammed him against the wall again with renewed vigor, literally sending a crack zigzagging up into the concrete wall.

Crowley grimaced, looked up and squinted as rubble dusted over him—and then he had a thought. Actually—if the angel kept pounding him into the wall, he might be able to escape the devil's trap completely. He glanced up at it—another good slam might crack the wall far up enough to break the trap. The train sounded closer now, he could see the headlights clearly as the train rounded the bend.

"Find out if her name is written in the book of Hell or I lay you to waste," the angel threatened again, and Crowley's mouth crooked into a little smile.

"She's important to you, innt she? Your beloved little Alex… won't it be sad when she comes downstairs with me…" Castiel's expression was cold and furious. Crowley sealed the deal with a meaningful smile and the raise of a solitary eyebrow. "Oh the things I'll do to that sweet little soul of hers…"

Cas slammed him into the wall again with devastating force—and Crowley's theory proved true. He felt the devil's trap break, among other things—his back would have been broken completely if he was still human. It did sting a bit, either way. However, he was no longer bound, and the angel, too wrapped up in righteous anger, didn't notice. The train horn was close now, the lights were bright. Crowley wiggled his eyebrows at the angel just once. "Should learn to control your temper, mate. Lands you in _all kinds_ of sorrow. See ya later."

Crowley disappeared, left, returned home. He looked down at his suit. Absolutely ruined, it was. He made a displeased face, then sighed heavily. No matter. A ruined suit was a small price to pay for what had just happened. He felt pleased, actually. This could be very, very useful.

_Very_ useful indeed.

* * *

Dean had stalked back in from his visit to the bar, packed his stuff, barked at his siblings that they were leaving and to get a move on. Cue the five hour, silent car ride. Tension thick enough to cut with a knife. Dean was taking them back to Bobby's—they needed to regroup, to figure this mess out. He'd planned on driving all night, But Sam had insisted that Alex needed rest and so they'd gotten a motel room in Austin, Minnesota. None of them had said a thing to each other, just turned in. Dean had been watching his siblings all day from the corner of his eye—seen Alex avoiding looking at him, Sam giving him all these passive-aggressive stares, trying to guilt trip him. He felt like he had no one left who _got _him anymore. No one who realized why he was so jacked up, why he was so angry about everything.

So now Dean laid there in the dark on a stiff motel bed, unable to sleep. His mind was racing, troubled, tortured with so many thoughts and fears. Sam, however, had knocked out as soon as they'd arrived—was snoring noisily in the bed to Dean's left. Dean looked to his right—he could see Alex's familiar outline in the dim light. She always slept on her side, and was turned like that right now, away from him. The second they'd gotten to the motel, she'd laid down on the bed, still in her jacket and shoes, then hadn't moved at all again. Dean could see her shoulder rising and falling now. He saw that like himself, she wasn't asleep either. Her sleep-breathing was much slower than that.

As he watched her small form, he felt an incredible sadness wash over him. He only wanted to protect her. He only wanted to keep her safe. Maybe he had a hell of a way of showing it, huh? Right now she was mad at him, and had ever right to be, he guessed. He'd kind of lost it on her. But he was under so much pressure—he was backed into a corner, and every time he looked up, there was always _one more thing_ going wrong.

All Dean knew was that he couldn't say no to the angels forever—it was clear that Zachariah wasn't going to give up, in fact, he'd been more pissed off than ever before today, and he'd specifically threatened Alex, had shown Dean exactly how much power he had. Alex mute again couldn't happen. Alex dead again couldn't happen. Sam being Lucifer's vessel was awful enough, but really, why did _both_ of his siblings have to be in mortal peril? Why did he have to be a failure at protecting both of them? Why did God have to decide to pull him, a supposed righteous man, out of Hell... send an angel to task him with a heavenly mission… then leave him high and dry? With no way out? It wasn't right. It wasn't _fair_.

Dean stared at Alex's shoulder unseeingly now. It didn't matter why or that it wasn't fair. It was his reality. And sooner or later, Michael, Zachariah… _whoever_, would catch up to Dean, and subsequently, to Dean's family. Sooner or later, Alex was going to be caught in the crossfire. And they might not get a lucky break like today again. Next time, she might stay dead—left for eternity somewhere in the darkness, alone and scared. Dean felt everything inside of him protest that thought. It wasn't right. _Why?_

His heart literally ached as he thought of his silent sister and long car rides in years past. Alex in the back, nose in a book because she was unable to contribute to the conversation. And Dean would look in the rear-view and wonder what she was thinking, if she'd ever be okay—if he'd be taking care of her until the day he died. And then he'd wonder if and when he died, would Sammy take over? Would Sam shoulder the responsibility, or run off like he did with so many other things? And Dean would ask himself if she'd ever be able to survive on her own, if she had to. And not so much physically, but mentally and emotionally. But _now_ he had to worry about what waited for her when she left this world for good. Now he had to worry about her eternal fate, he had to figure out _why_ and how to change it.

He didn't want to be in Heaven for all eternity without her there, knowing she was drifting somewhere in darkness. To him, that wouldn't be Heaven, it would be Hell.

Dean thought how it had always been her and him, _always_. Sometimes Sam had been gone, most of the time Dad had been gone. But Dean and Alex—that had been a guaranteed. That had been a given. Maybe it was selfish of him to think she'd always be there with him. And maybe he needed her more than he was willing to admit.

Dean had never even considered that maybe she would go off, start a life of her own… meet a guy, even. He'd always just assumed she'd be there with him, living this life on the road, fighting at his side, letting him take care of her. Dean felt a strange feeling in his stomach when he thought about how he just didn't_ trust_ anyone else other than himself to protect her like he knew he would. He would die for her, without question. He would do _anything_ for her or for Sam. He didn't think it was possible for anyone else to care about his siblings as much as he did.

So seeing Alex gravitating toward the angel in the backwards tie… it inspired nothing but negative feelings in Dean. The thought of his virgin baby sister—who'd never had a boyfriend, had spent most of her life disabled, who had no heaven—messing around with a two-thousand year old angel who was walking around in a body that _wasn't even his_—Dean couldn't handle it. It set all his warning bells off, especially knowing that in some weird twisted version of the future, Cas got Alex killed. He had to keep them apart. _Had to_. He almost felt like he could have a panic attack as he remembered seeing Alex curled into Cas's side when he'd first come back from the dead. When the hell had she gotten that comfortable with Cas, anyway? Dean was lost. Confused. Worried sick.

Yeah, Cas cared about her, wanted to protect her—Dean got that. But were there strings attached? Did the angel have some dark interest in her? Was he taking advantage of Alex's little, naive, romance-novel-loving self? Castiel was a freaking angel—not a human—he barely knew how to do anything, how could he be emotionally capable of a relationship? And even if he were—it was still wrong, as wrong as Sam and Ruby had been. Any way Dean tried to look at it, he saw nothing but bad, nothing but weird, nothing but Alex making a huge, huge mistake.

And that's when Dean heard the softest little struggling breath, the quietest little restrained sob. And he froze, his heart clenched, his thoughts all flew out the window. Alex's shoulder moved oddly, like she was fighting herself. He recognized the way her body had stiffened, was shaking slightly. And Dean hadn't said a word to her all day, had shouted at her and said horrible things, but on instinct he got up and went to her, not even thinking, because she was crying and he couldn't let her cry alone—he'd never been able to. He sat beside her, pulled her up, turned her around all in the span of a second or two. She was crying hard but with a clamped-shut mouth, ashamed.

And then, for a second, Dean wondered if she would push him away or reject him, but their eyes met, her expression was broken and anguished, and they embraced each other at the same time—she shook with sobs she struggled to keep silent, and Dean's arms tightened around his baby sister, his eyes filled with stinging tears. He squeezed his eyes shut, held her even tighter, afraid to let go, just wishing things could be like they used to be. But every part of him felt terrible, lost, defeated. He thought about Fourth of July, 1996. When the three of them had been these wild, carefree, stupid kids who had burned a field down and that had been their biggest problem. And now? He had started the Apocalypse. His brother was Lucifer's vessel. His sister had no heaven, was caught in the middle of a battle between heaven and hell.

Dean was losing it now, and fast, breaking down. "What am I supposed to do?" he choked out softly. In his arms, Alex just cried harder, held onto him tighter.

* * *

_Liquor - Spirits - Beer and Wine_

Castiel stared up at the glowing neon sign morosely. He remembered a time when Alex had told him she drank to feel better. He had never felt worse. Crowley had escaped thanks to Castiel's foolishness, must have put together a protective hex—because Cas wasn't able to summon him again. It was like he had hit a wall and there was nowhere left to go.

To his right, a church sign glowed in the dark night. In large black letters it asked: _LOOKING FOR GOD? HE'S LOOKING FOR YOU, TOO._

Castiel wanted to destroy the sign. It was a lie. A total, complete lie. Cas looked back at the liquor store in front of him. Whiskey. He was going to drink some. Perhaps several gallons. It wouldn't have any effect, anyway.

He considered, for a moment, going to Alex instead. She could make him feel better—but then he thought of Dean and grudgingly, Castiel realized he _couldn't _go see her. Dean wouldn't allow it. Perhaps it was for the best. He didn't think so. But he felt so empty, so depressed, that for a moment, he just accepted it.

* * *

Sam watched his brother and sister hugging each other. Dean had his arms wrapped around Alex protectively, comfortingly, and she'd calmed down. Dean had calmed down, too. Sam felt a pang of jealousy. He'd always been on the outside like this and he didn't understand why. He could hear Dean whispering to Alex, things like_ it'll be okay_, and _I'm not going anywhere_, and Sam just didn't _get _how their sister could let the guy who had torn into her earlier that day be the one who comforted her, too. Dean even had the nerve to kiss Alex there on the forehead at one point, like he was some caring, tenderhearted brother—not the guy who had ripped her a new one earlier. Dean had been way out of line, hadn't apologized to her at all, and she was just… okay with it? The display made Sam a little mad, honestly.

But he just laid there, pretending to be asleep. Watching and kind of stewing and figuring that's what he got for leaving the family when he did. Just then, his phone buzzed loudly on the bedside table and Sam pretended to wake up groggily. Dean and Alex kind of started, looked at Sam curiously, who turned on the lamp between the beds. "It's Bobby," he said, and answered. "Kid," Bobby's urgent voice blared over the speaker, "get your asses over to Blue Earth _now_—demonic activity _off the charts_."

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ OMG. This chapter! I just… I just?! The Dean feels. I know he comes off as a douchebag all the time but finally, we got a glimpse into his mind and UGH. He just loves so much and is a control freak and STAB ME IT'S TOO MUCH!_

_You guys know what's next… 99 Problems… drunk Castiel! ARRRRGHHH I cannot wait! :) thanks as always for the reviews/Tumblr asks/notes you guys… they always make my day! _


	31. Closer to God

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 31 / Closer to God

"_You can have my absence of faith... you can have my everything__."_  
- Nine Inch Nails

* * *

**Outside of Blue Earth, Minnesota**

**5:53am**

"Hey, hey, what is that?" Sam asked in the front seat, even as Dean was slowing the Impala down. Ahead in the middle of the road, two cars were in flames and they could see that three people had been thrown clear of the wreck and out onto the asphalt. "Holy _crap_," Dean said, and the Impala jerked to a halt, both brothers were already halfway out of the car, Alex close behind, jogging almost—they didn't even bother to close the car doors behind them. The fire cast an intense, orange glow over the entire, horrible scene.

All three of the siblings reached a different victim at the same time, all three of them realized it was a trap at the same time. Because the second Dean crouched over the middle-aged woman, the moment Sam knelt to pick up the teenage boy, the instant Alex grabbed onto the feet of a thirty-something man to drag him away from the flaming vehicle he was sprawled next to—the three accident victims opened their eyes. Eyes black as night. "Demons!" Dean bellowed a few feet off, even as Alex let go of the demon's ankles—but not in time. He grabbed her wrists with lightning speed, yanked her down onto him, grabbing her and flipping her over, slamming her back-first onto the hard concrete and… _trying to bite her neck_—?! Holding the demon back with every ounce of strength she had, Alex took a stupid chance and shoved it back as far as she could, let go with one hand, punched the demon across the face—and was immediately hit in return—her head whipped sideways, she yelped, pushing on the demon's shoulders, trying to get it off of her… it was growling, snarling, trying to bite her again—

"Hey!" Sam's voice roared somewhere nearby, and her attacker was literally_ torn off _of her and slammed up against the flaming truck. Steam hissed and the demon screamed in agony as Sam, face twisted up in pain from being so close to the fire, held the demon down, searing clothing to skin against the hot metal shell—Sam punched the demon brutally across the face, holding it by the front of the shirt—not noticing the teenage demon running up behind him—and Alex was scrambling to her feet, screaming "_Sam_!" in warning, but it wasn't in time. The teenage demon jumped onto Sam from behind, bit him on the shoulder savagely—and Sam screamed in pain, let go of the demon that was on fire, stumbled back, struggling—and Alex who was on her feet now, lunged across the space separating herself and her twin, grabbed the teenager and managed to clumsily tear him off of Sam, and the two of them fell to the ground, and were rolling across the rough pavement, fighting for dominance. The teen had to be only fourteen or fifteen, so he was smaller, a little less strong than the others—but still strong as hell—and he managed to end up on top of her, choking her, grinning savagely as she struggled mightily—and Sam was suddenly there again, grabbing the kid up, tossing him aside like he weighed nothing—but then Sam was tackled by the demon who was on fire—and the two of them went down fast and hard. Alex was stuttering up to her feet, whipping out her hunting knife, not even sure what she was gonna do with it—and then she was suddenly pulled backwards by the teenager—she twisted and struggled hard, but then maybe two seconds after she was grabbed, she felt the demon go tense, he screamed and his grip went slack on her—Dean, Ruby's knife in hand, yanked the blade out from where he'd plunged it into her attacker's back. And before she could even fully register what had happened, he moved her aside roughly, holding the blade high, bringing it down on the demon Sam was trying to fight off.

With a horrible scream, the demon's skeleton flickered as it died and fell off of Sam. And a stunned, breathless silence fell over the scene. Dean pulled his brother up to his feet, and they all stared at each other, shocked, realizing they were lucky to be alive, that they had been totally unprepared for that very unexpected turn of events. Alex realized her mouth was full of blood and she spat, faced wrinkled up in revulsion. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Sam was grimacing, making a pain-filled sound as he held a hand over a bloody gash on his shoulder, and Dean and Alex both reacted at the same time, noticing the wound, examining it with the same shocked, horrified expression.

And then Sam started fearfully, noticing something. "G-guys!" he managed, and they looked where he was staring—saw at least_ fifteen _demons, in a horizontal line, walking up the road, toward them purposefully. Dean grabbed Sam tightly. "Car, car, _car_!" he shouted, and they ran. The demons broke into a run, too. Alex got to the car first and without a second thought, slid into the driver's seat as Dean shoved Sam into the backseat and tumbled in after, shouting at her to drive, to punch it, to _get us outta here_! The Impala swung around, jerked and shook as it dipped off the road for a second, turning around to head to opposite direction. They side-swiped one demon as the car barreled forward, and the body hit the hood, fell away with a sickening thud.

"Drive faster!" Dean roared in the back seat.

"It doesn't _go_ any faster!" Alex snapped, cutting the wheel sharply at the turn in the road, her eyes jumping to the rearview in alarm. Sam made a pain filled sound and Dean was temporarily distracted from his backseat driving. "Are you okay?" Dean demanded of his little brother. Sam seemed to suddenly think something was funny. "Yeah, I'm _amazing_."

"I've never _seen _that many!" Dean exclaimed, whipping his head around and craning his head, looking behind them, trying to see if they were being pursued. And then suddenly they swerved around another corner and Alex slammed on the brakes, swore loudly. There was an overturned semi truck trailer across the road ahead, and it was in flames, blocking the way completely.

"What the hell!" Dean exclaimed, aghast—and then suddenly irrational in his alarmed anger. "See this is why I never let you drive!"

Alex threw him a brief, crazy look over her shoulder. "What, because there might be_ flaming debris _in the middle of the road?!"

"Just drive!" Sam shouted even as she slammed the car into reverse. "I _am_!" she sputtered, and the tires squealed as she whipped the car around—then suddenly a man with black eyes flung himself into the side of the car on Dean's side, the car shuddered to a stop, and the window shattered beside Sam, startling them all—but especially Sam, who was was abruptly being pulled out of the window by a demon—and without a second thought Alex yanked up the e-brake, jumped out of the car, went to draw her pistol—and was grabbed and tackled to the ground from the side by a female demon.

And then suddenly a floodlight bathed the entire road in light, water rained over them from the nozzle of a high-powered hose somewhere overhead, and the demon who had tackled Alex to the ground was convulsing and screaming, giving off steam, letting go of Alex—water then jetted at the demon holding Sam, and with a scream the creature let go—was that holy water? Over a bullhorn, a male voice was reciting some sort of incantation—not one Alex recognized, it wasn't even Latin, she didn't recognize any words at all—and confused, shoving the flailing demon off of herself, she pushed herself up onto all fours, then onto two feet, watching frozen in a tense position—she wasn't sure whether to run or what. She stood right beside the driver's side headlight of the Impala, and in front of her, on the ground, there were about five demons, all convulsing as black smoke shot out of their mouths. Sam and Dean, still in the car, watched with total shock.

A man with sandy blond hair stood across from the Impala, holding a bull horn—standing on the bed of an old red pickup, another guy was aiming the floodlight at the road, there was a tank of holy water jerry-rigged into the truck bed behind the guy—and to the left of the truck stood a teenage kid holding a shotgun. Alex, who was already out of the Impala anyway and somehow in less shock that her brothers, looked at the fallen demons, then the guy with the megaphone—and she didn't like this, it was extremely suspicious.

"What the hell is all this?" She demanded, looking over everything again, wondering if these guys were hunters or what. "Who are you?"

The kid with the shotgun seemed jumpy and nervous—when she took a step toward them, he was hefting his shotgun to aim it at her—but after years of hunting, of practice, years of experience and years of depending on instinct—this time completely sober, not about to be shot to death again by some idiot with a gun—Alex whipped her pistol out, had it aimed at him in less than a second and he froze, wide-eyed.

"Hey, hey—" the blond man appeased, raising his hands up in an act of nonaggression, looking surprised to see her weapon. "Put the gun down—we're not the enemy." He nodded his head toward the dead bodies on the ground. "They were."

Alex didn't take her eyes off the kid, who looked like he had an itchy trigger finger and no idea what he was doing. "Him first," she said. She heard Sam and Dean getting out of the Impala behind her.

"Put it away, Dylan," the blond man told the teenager, and the kid looked from the man to Alex nervously, uncertainly… and then grudgingly obeyed. Watching him carefully, feeling her brothers coming to stand on either side of her, Alex took a couple seconds, then reluctantly did as she'd said and put her pistol away… but stayed on high alert, ready to draw again if she had to.

The blond man looked at Sam's wound, frowning a little. "You kids all right?" he asked. He sounded suspicious, eyes flickering to Alex again.

"Yeah we're fine," Dean said, sounding plenty suspicious himself. "Who the hell are you guys?"

"Rob, I don't think—" the man on top of the firetruck started, addressing the apparent leader, the sandy-haired man—but Rob held up a hand. "It's fine, Paul." Rob turned to address the Winchesters again, to answer Dean's question. "We're the Sacrament Lutheran Militia."

"I'm sorry—the _what_?" Dean asked. Maybe like Alex, he'd expected them to say they were hunters.

Rob seemed to feel like he was humoring them at this point, like he was telling them something they didn't already know. "I hate to tell you this, but those were demons and this is the apocalypse. So…buckle up."

The teenager and the man named Paul were coming to stand beside Rob now.

"How do _you _know about the apocalypse?" Alex asked him, incredulous, suspicious.

He looked at Alex in surprise, then at Sam, then at Dean, then back at her, frowning, clearly not expecting to hear what he just had. "...how do _you_?"

Dean smirked at that point, wet his lips, chuckled dryly, cynically. "It's kinda our line of work." The three men—this supposed militia—exchanged confused looks at that comment.

"What do you mean?" Rob asked, even as Dean turned, ambled over to his car, opened the trunk up and looked at Rob, then the other two men, waved them over. "Have a look-see," he said. The three men approached slowly, exchanging hesitant glances. They looked over the trunk contents in surprise as Sam joined them, Alex trailing behind, wondering what Dean was doing.

"Looks like we're in the same line of business, huh?" Sam asked as the men looked at the trunk full of weapons and supernatural paraphernalia. "And among colleagues," Dean said. "That's a police-issued shotgun. That truck is, uh… inspired. Where'd you guys pick up all this crap?"

"You know how it is. You pick things up along the way," said the dark haired guy, Paul, neatly sidestepping Dean's question. All three men looked guarded and suspicious. Alex, hanging back beside Sam, was dubious. "So… this is all of you?" she asked. "_Three guys_ is a militia these days?"

Rob looked at her with an unreadable expression. "We've lost a few good folks here lately. And, there's more of us back in town." He glanced at Dean now. "But that's really not any of your concern."

"Guys, come on," Dean said. "This whole corner of the state is nuts with demon omens. We just want to help. That's all."

Rob and Paul look at each other warily, even as Alex fixed Rob with a piercing, questioning gaze, testing her theory. "Was that… an Enochian exorcism you used?" The two men looked at her in surprise and she shrugged. "Well it sure as hell wasn't Latin."

Rob looked at Paul again, and then looked back at the Winchesters, seeming to have decided something. "Follow us." He turned back to their truck, then paused, looked at Dean significantly. "And stay close. It's dangerous out here."

"Yeah, we got that," Dean muttered, and let out a heavy breath, began to walk around to his side of the car. He got in his seat, started the car back up, glanced at Alex in the rearview. She was shooting a suspicious look after the guys getting into their truck, as she rummaged for the first aid kit out from underneath the passenger side seat. Sam slid in beside her in the backseat, brushing the broken glass off the seat gingerly and shutting the door behind him.

"Enochian?" Dean asked Alex as he turned the car around. Sam was taking off his shirt, hissing as the fabric peeled away from his wound.

"Yeah," Alex answered Dean, distracted as she dug around in the first aid kit. "Pretty sure it was—no idea what else it could be, cuz it definitely wasn't Latin."

"Yeah, no, I know it wasn't," Dean said. She didn't see the skeptical, disapproving frown on Dean's face—she was too busy pulling out an alcohol wipe packet from the first aid kit. Dean let it slide grudgingly. "Okay, so how the hell would these middle of nowhere yahoos know an Enochian exorcism that _we_ _don't_?" Dean asked. He was casting watchful glances around them as they followed Rob's truck down the dark road.

"That's exactly what I'm wondering," Alex muttered, ripping open an alcohol packet and grabbing Sam's arm without any ceremony, rubbing the deep gash firmly with the disinfectant. Sam hissed and Alex gave him a look. "It stings," he mumbled pathetically.

"Suck it up, Winchester," she told him, a little teasingly, trying to lighten the mood—and even though he was clearly suffering, he smiled a bit, shook his head, looked down. Alex grabbed some gauze, pressing it against the bite mark to stop the bleeding, muttering for Sam to hold it there, which he did, while she took out the medical tape, ripped off a couple pieces. "Does anyone else think it's weird that these demons were… bitey?" she asked, looking at Sam and then glancing up at the rear view mirror, where Dean's eyes met hers for a second, then he looked away. "Demons getting their kicks in before the last call, I dunno," he said, sounding downtrodden, distracted, vexed.

The last call? Alex looked at the rear view mirror for a couple seconds more, waiting for her brother to look back at her, but he didn't. She remembered how he'd been crying on her shoulder just a few hours ago, how he'd said he didn't know what to do. She'd known he was depressed for awhile now, but after yesterday—finding out God wasn't going to help them sidestep the apocalypse—clearly, he'd taken it hard. When he'd flown off the handle, it had been difficult not to take personally. Usually Alex was able to roll her eyes and remove herself from the situation and realize that when Dean got mad and verbally belligerent like that, that he was letting off steam and processing whatever he felt. But yesterday… the things he'd said about the end being near, about having no options… she'd listened. She'd believed. And she, too, had despaired. Did he really think there weren't any options left? Dean _always_ knew what to do, and even if he didn't, he was tenacious. He _never_ gave up, he never_ talked_ about giving up. She almost felt like his apathy and hopelessness were contagious. But she didn't want them to be.

Swallowing, refocusing, she taped the gauze down onto Sam's arm. "Antibiotics later," she said offhandedly, distracted. There really wasn't a need to say that, about the antibiotics… after an entire lifetime of patching each other up they knew the drill by now.

"You need any help?" Sam asked, and Alex frowned, then realized she didn't even know her state as of the moment. "Your arm, lip… face," Sam said, gesturing to the pavement-burn on the side of her arm, the scrape across her upper cheek bone, the blood that was drying in the corner of her lips. She'd bitten part of the inside of her mouth when the demon had punched her. She shook her head at Sam, looking out the window, away from his concerned eyes. "I'm fine," she told him.

"Uh, okay," he said, sounding kind of like he didn't believe her. But he let it go, grabbing his duffel bag from where it was half-shoved up underneath the passenger side seat. Alex stared out the window. It was becoming light now outside and the landscape was covered in a thick blanket of fog. It seemed eerie.

In the front seat, Dean was glancing back at his brother and sister in the rear view, deeply troubled and distracted by thoughts of the end, of the apocalypse. He just wanted to know what the right thing to do was, but he literally didn't know anymore. And the two of them—Sam and Alex—they were his responsibilities, his _life_—and they hung in the balance. Dean was starting to wonder if any of them were going to make it out of this apocalypse thing alive. He didn't think so, actually. That thought should have sent him into a rage, called him to action. But he just stared at the road ahead unseeingly. Hopeless.

The car ride remained mostly silent and they came to the town after maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. They'd been to Blue Earth before, but not for a few years. And it was almost unrecognizable now. The entire town was enclosed with chain link fences that were had barbed wire spiraling across the top—some guy in a baseball cap with a rifle slung over his back manned the makeshift gate, let them in. As they rolled in and the guy shut the gate behind them, Dean looked disconcerted. "Is it just me or did we just enter the twilight zone?" he asked.

His siblings were too busy gawking to answer. People with guns walked the streets, their faces drawn tight, full of suspicion. The Impala passed homes and businesses, there were devil's traps spray painted onto the sidewalks in front of some houses, there were demon wards chalked onto windows. "These people aren't playing around," Sam commented, sounding worried and surprised. On the road ahead of them, Rob's truck pulled up in front of what was a quaint old church once. But surrounded by the haze of fog, people with guns, concrete barriers topped with barbed wire… it seemed like something out of a post-apocalyptic horror movie. Honestly, it reminded Alex of the camp in 2014. She caught Dean's eye in the rear view, and from the look on his face, she immediately knew he was thinking the exact same thing. Her chest clenched.

Dean parked the car and they all got out, Sam tossing his bloody shirt at Dean, who shoved it into the trunk. Rob, Paul, and Dylan walked toward the church, leaving the Winchesters to follow. Two guys stood on either side of the sidewalk that led to the church steps—they held long-barrel shotguns. A huge red devil's trap was sprayed across the sidewalk between the two men. Alex knew Sam and Dean were thinking what she was: none of them had ever seen anything quite like this before. It was weird. It inspired a lot of dread in Alex, for one. They followed the supposed militia up and into the building.

When they got into the dim church, they were met with a very unexpected scenario. Three couples stood up at the front of the church, facing the pulpit. "Who would have thought the apocalypse could be so romantic?" Asked a man, clearly the pastor. He smiled at each couple in turn. "Marriage, family—it's a blessing. Especially in times like this. So hold on to that."

In the very back of the tiny old church, the Winchesters were staring, all three of them flabbergasted. "A wedding?" Sam asked in almost a whisper, understanding… and then scoffing. "Seriously?"

"And at _six-thirty_ in the morning?" Dean added quietly, sounding just as skeptical and unconvinced as Sam did.

"Yeah," Paul confirmed furtively, startling all three of them—Rob and Dylan had sat down in a pew next to a red-haired woman, but Paul had apparently remained standing there with them against the back wall. "We've had eight so far this week."

"What's getting _married_ gonna change about the end coming on?" Alex asked in a hushed tone, not really to anyone in particular.

"Well, it's not," Paul said, shrugged mildly. In the front of the church, the ceremony progressed, but Alex wasn't listening, she was paying attention to Paul now. "That's not the point," he said, and he looked reminiscent. "I mean, if you can spend the last time you have on earth with someone you love, someone you felt strong enough about to marry, be with for the rest of your life… what's so bad about that?"

Alex blinked a couple times, feeling like she'd been schooled—and she was surprised because when he put it that way, she sort of got it. And there was something in his voice that made Alex look at him, really_ look_. "So if you feel that way… why aren't _you _up there?" she asked, curious. She got the distinct feeling he was talking about someone he felt that way about. Dean and Sam were looking at him now, too.

Paul's expression was hard to read, he looked down, shook his head as his mouth turned downward briefly. "Even if…" he looked up, decided to reword himself. "They wouldn't let us, even if we had wanted to. He's... dead now anyway."

"Oh," Alex said. She was quiet a minute, understanding. Feeling a twinge of distaste at the fact that he'd said _they wouldn't let us._ It wasn't much, but it was all she could say, about everything. "I'm really sorry."

Paul nodded, looked at the wedding in front of them again. The pastor was droning on. "…in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?"

Alex watched the wedding with a growing sense of panic, not joy or any other positive emotion. Maybe she should have thought this was romantic, but it was just a stark reminder that the end was near. And not only did _she _know it, but the _rest of the world _was beginning to get the message, too. She glanced at Dean, who was watching the wedding with an unreadable expression. Did he really think the end was near, too? _Was it_?

Alex looked at the couples up there, holding hands, gazing into each other's eyes with smiles. And all she could think about was that she had died yesterday. She and her brothers had _died_ yesterday. And everything was wrong with the world, everything was falling apart and God didn't care about any of it, but still these people were getting married, their eyes were still shining bright with hope. And Alex wished she could have some of that hope, because it was getting harder and harder to find within herself.

She thought of Castiel, wondered where he was, if he was okay. Missed him, worried about him. She'd thought of him all night long, all yesterday after he'd disappeared. He'd been so disappointed, so defeated, so wounded to learn that God wasn't going to help. Was he all right? Did he feel as faithless and hopeless as she did? As Dean did? As Sam did? Because even though they hadn't really talked about it, Alex knew all of them—herself, her brothers, Cas—that they were all clinging to mere shreds of hope at this point. Shreds that were blowing away in the wind. Leaving them with nothing at all, with empty hands.

"You may now kiss the brides!" the pastor proclaimed with a broad smile, holding his arms wide. Everyone cheered as the three couples kissed.

Alex and her brothers watched. None of the three of them were able to muster a smile.

* * *

It was mid morning. Maybe. Castiel stumbled out of the liquor store, the world spinning around him mightily. What a strange sensation. He pitched sideways. The wall had seemed further away and he was a little surprised when his shoulder slammed into the brick wall. He almost fell down, but he leaned away from the wall, shuffling sideways, out of control. He paused, held absolutely still, squinting deeply. If he held still a moment, he would regain his ability to move properly. He waited five seconds.

He took a step forward—and promptly fell the other way—his theory had been faulty, he realized as he tried to catch himself again, and then collapsed backwards. He fell down onto his back and elbows. He heard himself groan pathetically and he reflected on what had become of him. An angel of the Lord, fallen down drunk on the sidewalk.

_Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Those who dwell long over wine. _The verse of scripture came to mind suddenly, and Castiel felt a strange sensation—his throat rumbling, his vocal chords vibrating… a low, cynical chuckle broke out of his mouth and past his lips. A slurred, sloppy sound. He'd had those things—woe, sorrow, strife—long before he had ever even thought about consuming the alcohol. In fact, he _still _had those things. The smile on his face wavered and dissipated. Why hadn't the alcohol worked? Alex said it made her feel better. Why hadn't it made _him_ feel better? If anything, he felt worse.

His mind drifted to her, how she'd been dead just a few hours ago, how horrible it had been when he'd arrived, how terrible to wait, not knowing if she'd live again or not—and inwardly, Castiel felt himself stagnate, despair. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about anything.

All night long, Castiel had downed shelf after shelf of alcohol, waiting to feel its effects, waiting to feel nothing and think nothing, because of what had happened yesterday. He remembered begging God for help, for a sign, for anything. And his pleas had fallen onto deaf, uncaring ears. The love he'd had for the father he thought loved him too, the faith he had maintained for centuries was shattered. Why didn't God want to help them? Why didn't God want to save them? These fragile, precious humans.

Castiel felt weighty and clumsy and drowsy. He thought now, absently, that the owner of the store would be surprised when they came to open up the store and found the entire inventory gone. Cas had left the store a complete mess, bottles littering the floor, some smashed, some still half full and spilling onto the cheap linoleum floor. Oddly, Cas didn't feel any guilt about stealing the liquor. He felt regret because he was so drunk that he couldn't focus enough to walk, let alone travel through the fabric of space. Which meant he couldn't get to the Winchesters even if he wanted to. And now he realized maybe he shouldn't have become inebriated this way. What if they needed him? What if _she_ did?

Someone walked by and threw coins at him, and Cas blearily turned his head, his eyes crossing when he tried to focus on the ground beside his head where a few silver circles were rolling to a halt. What was he supposed to do with those? Everything was spinning again, even though he wasn't moving at all. He suddenly smiled, amused. _Everything was spinning, even though he wasn't moving at all! _He chuckled again deeply, and then a little harder, realizing how funny a sound that was that his vocal chords were making.

"Hey, get a job, you lazy bum!" a shrill, female voice said somewhere nearby, and all Cas could think was that the voice was the worst one he had ever heard, like screeching tires. He heard footsteps fade away, and nothing was funny anymore. Cas decided he needed to stand up, tried to roll over—and couldn't. He made a sound of frustration.

In the pocket of the trench coat, his phone suddenly made a little sound, the sound it made when the device received texts. The only person who ever texted him was her. He fumbled for it, he dropped it, he managed to get it again. He realized he had the phone upside down, righted it, squinted at the screen, his vision double for a second. He blinked a few times, clearing his eyes.

It was from Alex, just like he'd assumed. She'd written three words.

**Are you okay?**

* * *

Alex and Dean sat in the little crappy town bar. Dean was drinking a beer, distracted and people-watching halfheartedly as Alex was trying to text incognito. Sam was over at the bar, leaning across it, talking to Paul—who turned out to be the local bartend. It was a little bit after lunch time and they had now been in town for a few hours—gotten a motel room, learned a little more about what was going on in town.

After the wedding ceremony, Pastor Gideon, the guy who ran the show here in Blue Earth, had shown her and her brothers around. The basement of the church was full of kids packing salt rounds—the church was stocked with a freaking weaponry—apparently this town was some kind of magnet for demons and had been overrun with them for the past couple months, but the attacks were getting worse and worse. It was possible that Blue Earth attracted demons because there was a prophet here. The pastor's daughter, Leah Gideon, apparently heard from the angels, got visions of where demons would be, allowing the townspeople to defend themselves. Dean, of course, had flirted with her. Right in front of her dad. The pastor. Leah had some kind of otherworldly calm quality to her—had known who Dean, Sam, and Alex were, had looked over the three of them with knowing eyes. It was chilling actually. Chuck had never been creepy like that.

Anyway, now that they knew a prophet was involved, Dean had told Sam to call Cas, just a few minutes ago, actually. Alex wasn't sure why Dean wasn't going to do it himself. She was too busy trying to contact Cas, herself.

Alex stared down at her phone, dying for it to light up. She'd texted Cas about thirty seconds ago to ask if he was okay. She was worried about him, a lot. She was worried about a lot of things, but he was pretty damn near the top of the list. He'd disappeared yesterday, depressed and sullen, telling them all that he was going to find out why she had no heaven. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know why, at all.

Her phone vibrated just then and she quickly looked down at it… and was suddenly very confused.** rvlkjg.:';**

_rvlkjg.:';? What the hell? _Alex glanced Dean's way furtively—he was staring off at nothing, his beer in hand—Alex began to type in a reply text. **Cas? Is everything ok?**

A few agonizing seconds passed. And then his reply came in. **yes iM GOOD7**

She stared. Was something wrong with his phone? Alex didn't even have a chance to compose a new text, another one came in. **HOW Are yoiu '?**

Alex hesitated, frowning, then quickly wrote out her reply. **Why are you typing like that?**

**idrank some{ whisjhtkey adnd alclcohol8**

_Holy shit! Was Cas drunk?_ **How much?**

**5sheleves**

Her eyes went wide, she wasn't sure what to say back. She settled on:** Five shelves?**

His reply to her question made her eyes go even wider. **nO MY MISTAEK I MEAnt 50 shelrives**

Clutching her phone tightly, Alex got up from the table, her chair scraping across the floor loudly. Dean glanced at her, cursory. "I'll be back in a minute," she told him, and got some kind of mumbled "yeah okay," from him in reply.

Alex hurried to the bathroom, locked the door, called his number, pacing a small little circle on the floor. He picked up and she heard the sound of swishing, like he was rubbing the phone speaker across cloth. She stopped pacing, craning her neck into the phone, listening. "Cas?" she asked. More swishing. And then she finally heard him. His voice was deep and gravelly, sort of sharper than normal. "I dropped the phone," he slurred. "It's too small."

Hearing his voice so different rendered Alex into quiet shock for a second. "Cas? Are you all right?"

"Uh… yes." A pause. "_No_. I don't know."

Stressed out, Alex absently ran a hand through her hair. "What's—you drank _fifty shelves_ of alcohol?"

There was a long pause. "More or less."

"… _why_?" she asked, and she was guessing it was because of everything that happened yesterday, but _she_ was supposed to be the one who ran to alcohol when she was upset, not _him_! That was too much like the Castiel she'd met in 2014.

"Why?" he repeated, and he sounded dumbfounded. He took a long time to reply, maybe thinking about it. "It... seemed like a good idea at the time."

Okay. _Okay._ Focus. Alex took a deep breath. "Where are you, Cas?"

He was breathing heavily, noisily into the phone, and it suddenly sounded like he had the phone right up against his mouth. "Uh. I don't know."

Alex pulled her ear away a little. Tried not to be amused, because she didn't think she should be amused about this. "_Okay_… well, what do you see where you are?"

"Um. The sky."

"The _sky._" She blinked a couple times, arriving at the only logical conclusion she could think of. "Are you_ laying down_?"

"Yes." He sounded so, so drunk. Alex closed her eyes, put a hand to her forehead, absently scrubbing her palm against it.

"Okay, well… do you know what _town_ you're in?" she asked. She had this crazy idea in the back of her mind that maybe he'd know where he was, if it wasn't too far, maybe she could go find him and pick him up. But his answer was a very unsure "um…"

Getting exasperated, Alex tried again. "Can you come here to where I am?"

"Not right now," he said, said, garbled. "I seem to be incapasassacitated." He stopped. "Incapacitabed," he tried again. "In..capab..si..." he stopped, gave up. Sounded extremely cranky about it. "I can't get up."

She'd tried not to be amused at this whole situation, to stay serious and be mature, but _that _was too much and she stifled a giggle as she pictured him laying on the ground somewhere, drunk, his little trench coat bunched up around him on the ground, his expression confused, sort of grumpy, and completely adorable.

She was smiling fondly, wishing she could see it for herself. She couldn't wipe her smile away. "Okay, well… when you can stand up…" she said, "we're in Blue Earth, Minnesota. At the Green Valley Motel, room nine." She paused, and she wished she could see him _now_. Her smile wavered because she didn't know how long she could wait. "Come as soon as you can?" she asked softly.

"Yes, of course," he replied automatically, and those three words set her at ease. He would always come. She knew that, but hearing him say it gave her an immense and unexpected amount of comfort. He surprised her completely with what he said next. "I like your eyes. When I'm looking at them, I mean. Well. Just in general."

A little caught off guard, it was her turn to fumble verbally. "Uh…" she managed.

And he spoke again, knocking her off balance even further. "I just really never want you to die."

It surprised her to hear that spoken out loud. She already knew that he didn't want her to die—but it touched her to hear him say it so earnestly and sadly. She suddenly felt stripped bare and way more emotional than she wanted to be. She cleared her throat, blinked to clear her eyes. "Just, uh, come as soon as you can, huh?"

"Yes, I will." He paused. She could just _see_ his expression of tortured guilt. "I'm sorry I can't come now."

Helplessly, she smiled a little, because she knew he meant it. "It's okay." She paused, tried to sound soothing. "Call me if you need me, all right?"

There was a long pause and she heard him breathing heavily into the speaker. Then he finally said, "Yes. All right."

She was quiet a second. It was time to hang up then, wasn't it? "Bye, Cas," she said, not really wanting to end the call. He sounded like he was testing the words on his tongue. "Bye, Alex."

For three long seconds, she didn't move, didn't say anything. Neither did he. And then, knowing it had to end sometime, she pulled the phone away from her ear, feeling incredibly sorrowful. Her thumb hovered over the end call button. Why couldn't he be there _now_? Alex tightened her jaw, told herself to get a hold of herself. She hit the end call button hard and stared at the words _Cas: Call Ended_. Looked up at the bathroom mirror. Saw a girl who wanted an angel more than anything else in the world. Saw a girl who would die and exist in darkness with no heaven. Saw a girl who was barely holding it together. But had to. _Had to._

She pocketed her phone, wandered back into the main part of the bar, distracted, troubled. Dean still sat by himself at their table. When she sat down, Dean didn't even acknowledge her. His beer was only half empty. Weird. Usually he would be on his second or third by now. Sam came over just a couple seconds later, three fresh beers in hand.

Alex poked at the bowl of peanuts on the table. "You get a hold of Cas?" Dean asked Sam, who was setting the beer bottles down on the table. "Went straight to voicemail, but I left him a message," Sam said, then paused, a funny look on his face. "I _think_. So uh, what's your theory? Why all of the demon hits here?"

Dean looked tired, like he didn't want to have to think about answering right now. But he still did. "I don't know. Gank the girl? The prophet, maybe?"

Sitting back in her chair now, hands in her lap, Alex shook her head, frowning. "Chuck never attracted demons like that though, right? Something's weird here."

Dean made a face like he was considering that she had a point.

Sam was nodding, then looking at Dean for a second opinion. "I mean, why are these angels sending these people to do their dirty work?" he asked. "Making these people hunt all these rabid demons, when the angels could do it for them?"

"I dunno," Dean said. Took a swig of his beer, didn't look too bothered either way.

Alex and Sam looked at their brother with similarly perplexed expressions. Something just wasn't right with Dean. Sam leaned forward, looking at Dean intently, frowning in disapproval. "Aren't you concerned at all that these people could get _ripped_ to _shreds_?"

Dean looked almost amused and shocked his siblings with his blunt, uncaring reply. "We're all gonna die, Sam. In like a month—maybe two." He looked at Alex, whose flabbergasted expression prompted him to say, "I mean it." His words, that dead-in-the-eyes smile stretched across his face—Alex was chilled, shocked. "This is the end of the world, but these people aren't freaking out. In fact they're running to the exit in an orderly fashion." Dean shrugged. "I don't know that that's such a bad thing."

Alex stared at Dean, slack-jawed, almost horrified. She couldn't believe her ears. In fact, she felt like her heart had been broken and her world had been shattered, hearing Dean talk so with such blasé disregard for what she thought they _lived for._ Saving people. Saving each other.

"Who says they're all gonna die?" Sam asked. He sounded hurt. Disillusioned. "What happened to us _saving _them?" Sam's eyes flickered in the direction of their sister, then back to Dean. His brows furrowed earnestly. "What happened to us saving _everyone_?"

Dean was silent—and then the church bell began to toll loudly. As if on cue, all of the bar patrons began getting up, filing out—"something I said?" Dean wisecracked, watching the people leaving with vague interest.

"Paul—" Sam said, nodding to the bar tend, who was shrugging his jacket on, making to leave with everyone else. "What's going on?"

"Leah's had another vision," Paul said, pausing at their table. "Mean's there'll be a hunt. You guys in?"

* * *

**An Hour Later**

**Five Miles off Talmadge Road, Blue Earth**

The eight of them crept up the hill that the abandoned old house sat on—they'd parked half a mile away and cut through some wooded property, trying to keep this assault a surprise to whatever demons waited. There wasn't any movement or sign of life anywhere in the house or around it. This is where Leah, the prophet, had said the demons would be. Apparently, she was never wrong. The little group of eight was armed with shotguns, holy water, the demon blade—it was fair to say this was going to get _interesting_. There might be two demons in the house, there might be twenty. Either way, Alex was ready. Her adrenaline was beginning to pump, but especially now as the group knelt down and Pastor Gideon began to signal them out.

He motioned for Sam, Alex and Paul, to go left, Dean and Dylan to go right, and Rob and Jane to go with him. Jane was Rob's wife, Dylan's mom—and she was the only woman other than Alex, apparently, who had ever gone on these demon hunts.

Their little assault team broke ranks, approaching the house quickly, discreetly. As Dean and Dylan broke right, Alex caught Dean's eye for a second—usually before they went on hunts, before they did stuff like this, he'd lecture her and remind her about a million things she knew already. But today he hadn't said a thing. She gripped her gun tighter. She was glad she was gonna get to kill something today.

Sam led Paul and Alex to the back door of the house—they kept to the side of the house as they skirted it—and they quickly, quietly hurried up the back porch stairs. Sam gingerly tested the back door. He turned to Alex. _Locked_, he mouthed to her, and she nodded her understanding. Sam knelt, began to pick the lock, face crunched in concentration as Alex covered him, watched his back hawkishly, shotgun pulled tight into her shoulder—there was no movement anywhere in the yard or anywhere on either side of them. Paul backed up against the window beside the door, his weapon held high, too—and they heard a shot somewhere on the other side of the house at the same time that a demon shattered the glass of the window where Paul stood, grabbing the man with astounding quickness, tearing him into the house. And when Sam shot to his feet in surprise, Alex decided she didn't have time for this shit and kicked the rotting door down, busted into what looked like the kitchen, her shotgun trained on the space ahead of her. Paul was grappling with the demon, who had its back to her, and she aimed, every muscle in her body screaming with adrenaline.

"_Down_!" she shouted, and Paul ducked—and the second he did, Alex took the shot. A headshot—and blood splattered everywhere, including half of her face. Paul looked at the somewhat headless demon's corpse on the floor in wide eyed shock. Sam stood there, frozen, looking down at himself. "I hate it when you do that," he complained—he had the demon's blood all over himself and a grossed out expression on his face. Alex shrugged, like as if to say, 'well, what you gonna do?' Paul shouted—two demons had appeared in the doorway—Sam was already halfway there, demon blade high and plunging into one of the demon's chests—and the second demon took buckshot in the abdomen, courtesy of Alex. Paul, looking sort of shocked at the quickness that the Winchesters reacted, recited the demon exorcism then quickly followed after the two of them, who were already halfway out the door, looking like they'd done this a million times—covering each other's backs, weapons ready. The three of them advanced through the house, cutting and mowing down demon after demon—the house was full of gunshots and screams.

"Over there, over there!" Alex shouted, firing at the demon that was in front of her but trying to get Sam to notice the demon that was to her right—Sam did, and slashed the demon violently with Ruby's knife, sending sparks flying as the demon's skeleton flickered. He charged forward at another demon in the main room, but Alex whirled, hearing footsteps behind her—and blasted down another demon in the nick of time, just before it was about to get to her. She heard Paul shouting the exorcism again, and she looked to her side—"Paul, look out!" she shouted, and was about to shoot the demon that had appeared out of nowhere and was advancing on him—but she was suddenly feeling something slamming into her. Her shotgun went skittering across the floor, she stopped herself from hitting the floor face-first by with her palms even as she felt herself being dragged—and then there was a loud shot. She stopped moving, looking up and over her shoulder.

The kid, Dylan, stood over her, looking scared shitless—he'd shot the demon who had gotten her, and the demon had fallen half-off of Alex, stunned temporarily by the shot. Just a few feet away, the demon that had Paul was choking the guy, and Dylan looked frozen, following Alex's eye line and seeing it, too. "Don't just stare, shoot it!" Alex shouted at him from the ground—and she kicked the demon that had attacked her in the face, because she felt its hands clawing at her again. Dylan seemed to remember himself, he aimed and fired. Alex, who had slipped the clutches of the demon on the floor, jetted up to her feet now, tried to remember the Enochian exorcism, because Paul was unconscious and Dylan was staring again and the two shot demons were recovering. "_Rah bah zu na ooh zow tay_…?" Black smoke poured out of the demon's mouths and Alex stood back, breathing a little heavily, relieved. She shrugged, eyebrows raised high. "Good enough I guess."

She realized the sound of gunfire was gone. "Clear!" she heard Dean bellow in a room close by. "Clear!" came another voice, further away. Pastor Gideon, Alex thought. She bent to pick up her shotgun, and when she straightened, she saw Dylan staring at her.

"Y-you've got blood all over you," he said, sounding freaked out. She thought, absently, how nice it would be to be his age—seventeen? Eighteen? And to be freaked out by this stuff. By the time she'd turned eighteen, pretty much nothing had fazed her anymore. She looked at the demon's blood that was spattered on her jacket arm. "It's not mine," she told him, but he looked really freaked still—his knuckles were white from how tightly he gripped his shotgun. Alex put a steady hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eye, kind of endeared to him right now. "Hey—not a bad job here today, kid."

He looked very offended, the panic in his eyes disappearing in favor of indignance. "_Kid_? I'm seventeen."

She squeezed his shoulder then let go. "Like I said. Not bad, kid."

He rolled his eyes, re-hefted his grip on his shotgun, tried to look grown up. Alex smiled to herself. On the ground, Paul groaned loudly, becoming conscious again. Alex and Dylan helped him up, regrouped with everyone else in the main room—and they all walked out of that place feeling like a million bucks.

* * *

Things could change in a matter of seconds, she thought. In fact, they always did. Like how one second, that little militia of theirs had been the victors, had been puffed up and feeling great about how they'd just kicked those stupid demon's asses. And then just a minute later, Dylan had been dead. His bright young life taken by a demon they'd overlooked. It could have been avoided, too. It didn't have to have happened that way. At least, that's what Alex thought.

It was about four hours after he died, his little makeshift funeral was being held here at the church. Ironic. Wedding in the morning, funeral in the late afternoon. When it was the end of days, people just didn't wait around to do the things that mattered, she guessed.

Alex was outside of the church, unable to go inside. She didn't _do_ funerals, she just didn't. _Couldn't_. She remembered standing around about a quarter of a mile off from the psychic Pamela's funeral, too. Some people thought it was disrespect. It wasn't. It was deep, horrifying, overwhelming grief and the incapability to deal with the finality of death.

Leaned up against the wall beside the door, her hands in her jacket pockets, her gray hood raised up over her head, Alex was still, expression terse. A crow called in the distance. The town was quiet. Pretty much everyone was inside the church. She vaguely wished for a cigarette. Or a punching bag. Or maybe a bed to lay down in and never get out of.

Or Cas.

The church door opened beside her, and a single person walked out, shut the door behind himself. Paul gave her a thin, wan smile, his hands in his jacket pockets. No one else followed him. "What are you doing out here?" Alex asked him, frowning a little.

"I could ask you the same thing," he said, and took out his flask, drank a little, leaned on the opposite side of the door. He was quiet a minute. Then the sound of his voice startled her. "So who'd you lose?" When she furrowed her eyebrows at him questioningly, he shrugged one shoulder up a little. He looked as drawn and heavy as she felt. "I recognize the look."

She looked away, eyes down on the old concrete sidewalk, thinking about the answer to his question. A little huff of cynical air passed between her lips. "Who_ haven't_ I lost." There was another long silence, and then Alex looked at Paul sadly. Almost didn't ask. But felt compelled to. "When did he die?"

Paul's flask stopped halfway to his mouth. Lowered. "Couple months ago," Paul said. His voice was heavy with remembrance. Tight with emotion. He seemed to be thinking about something intently. His eyes went up, passing over the skyline in front of him. "You know, I'm not the marrying type, it just seems so meaningless in the world today... but… with him?" There was another long pause. "I thought about it. I thought about it a lot." His flask raised to his lips now, he took a swig, grimaced. "I like weddings better than funerals, I'll tell you that much."

Alex could heard and feel how sad, how regretful Paul was. She thought about Dylan. She was literally_ right next to him_ when he'd gotten pulled underneath the car. It had taken seconds, and his life had been snuffed out. She wondered if she could have saved him somehow, if she'd been paying more attention, or had reacted faster. She bowed her head down. "It was _stupid_," she said, shaking her head hollowly, thinking of all the ways she could have prevented it. "Dylan didn't have to die, you know?"

Paul let out a heavy breath. "Yeah. Well, that's life. Stupid. And hey, we're near the end anyway. Kid went down swingin'." He paused, then held his flask out toward her. "Want some?" Alex shook her head no, thanks, the pit of her stomach heavy and sick. "Suit yourself," Paul said, took another swig, then looked at her with a sad, cynical smile on his mouth. "You should come see me at the bar later. Drown your sorrows a little."

Alex pressed her mouth up into a thin line meant to be a smile. "Nah. I prefer to drown my sorrows alone." She'd meant to say it humorously, but it just sounded pathetic and sort of true. She felt restless, heavy, horrible, and stood all the way up, pushed herself away from the church wall. She just needed to be alone right now. "I'm gonna head back to the motel—tell my brothers if you see them?"

"Yeah, sure," Paul said, but seemed mildly concerned. "You sure you wanna walk there? It's a couple miles away."

Alex shrugged. She'd be fine. "I could use the air," she said, and he nodded, watched her as she walked down the church steps, hands still in her jacket pockets. She looked back at him over her shoulder, gave him a sad attempt at a friendly smile. "Seeya later," she told him.

* * *

**About An Hour Later**

Dean walked along the sidewalk, eyes on the ground. Sam had ditched him after the funeral, Alex was who-knows-where. He'd just been to talk to Leah, the prophet, and what she'd said to him was bothering him. He'd gone to ask her if she knew the deal. The stuff about the Michael Lucifer showdown, the stuff about how the world was supposed to tear itself in half and burn. He'd basically wanted to know if she was on the level. He'd just wanted to know everything the angels were telling her. He'd wanted her to give him a lifeline, to convince him that his life wasn't just a heap of hopeless bullshit.

"_There's gonna be a prize-fight,"_ she'd said. _"And… it's gonna get bad. But after we win—and we _will_—the planet gets handed over to the chosen. And… it's finally peaceful. No monsters, no disease, no death. You're just… with the people you love in Paradise. New earth." _

_Just with the people you love_, Dean repeated in his mind. Alex and Sam. Only, Sam was the other half of that prize-fight Leah had mentioned. "After we win—and we _will _win," Leah had said. We. Heaven. Michael. Did she know that for sure? She was a prophet, after all. Maybe she'd foreseen the outcome. And maybe that was good news, Heaven winning. Dean felt his lip curl in distaste. Heaven and Hell could _both_ kiss his ass. They both sucked. This grand finale crap was for the frigging birds.

Dean hadn't wanted to consider saying yes to Michael. _Ever_. But if he could save one of his siblings, if he could just save _one_ of them, instead of letting _all _of them get destroyed in the firefight… wouldn't that be the right thing to do? Dean wished he knew. He tried to picture a future world where Alex could live in this supposed new earth. Maybe, if he said yes to Michael, he could strike up a bargain, make sure she got a heaven. Make sure she was okay in the end. That didn't sound so bad.

But, _Sam_… how could Dean let his little brother burn away in the fire? How could he let Lucifer take him, use him? Dean wondered morosely what Dad would do. These thoughts of the end, of his family, should have made him want to break down and weep for all the hopelessness he felt. But he could muster no emotion. He felt so empty, like his insides were a large echoing room.

"_Yeah, Paradise," _Dean had retorted cynically._ "Of course, that's if you can get past the velvet rope,_" he'd said, felt jealous of Leah in that moment. "_Must be nice—being chosen_."

Leah had sounded almost surprised, looked at him with big, doe eyes. "_Dean… _you're _chosen_." He could have laughed in her face at that comment, only he hadn't had the energy. Instead, he'd shaken his head, managed a self-loathing smile. "_Yeah, more like cursed_."

And that was the truth of the matter. He was cursed. He had lived a life of horrible violence, destruction. His family was shattered, the remaining parts falling apart. His brother and sister were slipping out of his grasp, he couldn't protect them anymore and had been an idiot to think he could. And the worst part was he could barely feel anything anymore about anyone or anything. He barely cared whether he woke up the next day or not. What did it matter? What did any of this _matter_?

* * *

"_Don't wanna touch you too much baby. Cuz makin' love to you might drive me crazy_." Def Leppard rang out of the cheap motel clock radio and Alex, curled up, sitting against the headboard of the twin bed, cradled a bottle of Jack. She was really quite pathetic, she thought, looking down at herself. She had gotten to the motel room a little while ago, been struck by the sudden urge to change her clothes, hating everything about her jeans, her tank top, her jacket—which was now ruined with blood, anyway. She'd dug through her duffel bag, stilled when she saw _the dress._ The dress she bought under the influence of Famine. She hadn't gotten rid of it, even afterwards. She kind of liked it, actually. Maybe it's because of what had happened in that dress. So, she'd found the dress, put it on again, looked herself in the bathroom mirror. Wondered if she should decide to be the kind of girl who wore dresses sometimes. World was about to end, maybe she should mix it up a little bit.

Castiel had liked the dress. And she thought, remembering in detail, what it had been like to be in his arms that way, with him kissing her with so much abandon and desire and what felt like adoration. Her body ached, thinking of that. Thinking of him. "_Love bites, love bleeds—it's bringin' me to my knees. Love lives, love dies, it's no surprise. Love begs, love pleads. It's what I need._"

Annoyed, Alex switched the radio off. Love. _Ha_. She took another swig of the whiskey, thought about those couples who had gotten married that morning. She was too busy dying a _virgin_ to be worried about dying _single_. Oh well. She sighed heavily, realized she couldn't be_ too _mad. She wasn't going to die without having fallen in love—that had happened. And what a love it was. She thought of Castiel, kissing her so tenderly in the shower yesterday. _We can't_, he'd told her a few weeks ago. But still, they were. In a way they didn't talk about, didn't acknowledge. And if that's the way it had to be, fine. She'd take whatever she could get, however she could get it. Desperate times, desperate measures.

But would he just disappear on her, again? Trying to protect her from the future? Actually… she didn't think so. Her instincts told her he would stay this time. But why couldn't he be here _now_?

Alex tried to remember the time when she'd hated him—well, hate wasn't the right word. Mistrusted was better. But she couldn't remember what that had felt like, because now, and she wasn't even sure how it had happened, she trusted that angel almost more than anyone else. Actually... maybe she trusted him the _most_. She thought about how yesterday she'd been leaning against him and in his arms, telling him all about what happened in Heaven, she'd felt like he was her shelter from the storm. She'd known he wasn't going to let go of her or let her be hurt. She wished so badly for him to appear now. The thought that she _needed him_ kept crossing her mind, and the thought startled her each time. And what startled her more was that she didn't really want to fight it anymore. She understand what she felt, she just felt it. She accepted it. That she needed him. That she couldn't imagine her life without him anymore.

She looked at her phone, which hadn't gone off again. She'd thought about texting Cas a thousand times, but hadn't. God, the sweetheart. Angel-equivalent of passed out drunk somewhere after fifty shelves of alcohol. She shook her head softly. Actually, fifty shelves of alcohol didn't sound bad right now. She thought about texting him _I miss you_. What would he think of that? On second thought, maybe she shouldn't.

She wished abruptly that when you died, you could just _be dead_. Why did you have to go on existing and being conscious after this life closed out? She thought of an eternity in the darkness of heaven, all alone, and she stared down at her feet, becoming deeply disturbed. She really needed to get a new pair of boots. This pair was barely holding together anymore. She paused. Well, what was the point in new boots if the world was ending in a couple weeks like Dean had said? Maybe, she thought errantly, maybe everyone was wrong. Maybe the end wasn't near. Maybe, last minute, something would change. Maybe they would still find a way. Maybe, maybe, _maybe_. She took another drink of Jack. She was a little past tipsy now.

As if he knew she was thinking about him, the motel room door opened, in walked Dean, a hard look on his face. His presence was like an immediate dark cloud over the whole room. She could already tell, before he said a frigging thing, that he was about to be a complete jackass.

"Seriously?" he asked, tossing his keys down. "You been sitting here with Jack Daniels instead of going to that kid's funeral?"

Alex looked at him unhappily—suspicion confirmed, Dean was gonna be a douche bag. And today she didn't have the patience to even try. "_You're _gonna lecture me about drinking?" she retorted, made a face. "Wow. I am gonna die laughing."

Dean rolled his eyes, threw his jacket across a chair. "Can it, smartass."

"Where have you been, anyway?" Alex asked sullenly. "Where's Sam?"

"I got no idea where Sam is," Dean said apathetically, not looking at her as he answered. He went to the TV, got the remote. "I went to talk to the prophet."

"Talk, huh?" Alex asked sarcastically. Dean shot her a look as he sat down on the end of one of the other beds. "Yes, _talk_."

"And…?" Alex prompted, setting her bottle of booze down on the bedside table, sitting up where she could see him a little better, not just his back turned to her. "What did you find out?"

His expression was stony. "A whole lot of jack squat." He switched on the TV, didn't pay attention to her.

Alex looked at him, scowling intently. Dean was just off. Wrong. _All kinds _of wrong. She tried to soften her voice. Tried a new tactic. "You okay?"

He barely acknowledged her with a brief side glance. "Yeah, fine, why?"

Well. _That _hadn't worked. She couldn't take this anymore. Alex stood up, grabbed the remote, switched the TV off and stood in front of him deliberately. "You're _not _fine," she said, a little louder than she'd meant to. "Come on. I've known you my whole life. Don't pretend."

Dean looked at her, frowned, eyes taking in her outfit. "Why you wearing a dress?" he asked, trying to sidestep her question. "I mean, who are you?" he was pretending to joke but Alex could see he was just trying to get her to go away.

"Come on, Dean," she said, ignoring his question. "What's with you?"

He got agitated, stood up, walked a couple steps off, turned around. Looking like he'd been set off. "What's _with_ me?" He threw his arms wide. "How about the end of the world, Al? The friggin' apocalypse or the angels on our asses or the fact that Satan wants to ride Sam like the rodeo?" he shut his mouth, pressed his lips together for a second, looked down, shook his head. And when he looked back up at her, he looked cold, cynical, done. "You know what I'm thinking? You really wanna know? I'm thinking _maybe I should_."

"Should _what_?" Alex asked, confused, but the second she asked it, she realized. "…say _yes_?" she asked, her voice rising in panic and disbelief.

Dean shrugged. "Michael defeats Lucifer, everything's okay again."

Alex blinked, unable to believe what she was hearing. "Everything's _okay again_? What version of reality have you been tuning in to? If Michael loses—_the world is screwed_." Alex stared at her brother, confounded. Was he listening to what he was saying? "If Michael wins, millions _still die_," she appealed, then stopped, looked at Dean in horror. "And... could you really kill Sam?"

Dean looked at her without blinking, his expression blank, resigned. "It wouldn't be Sam. It'd be Lucifer."

Those words were like a punch to the gut. Alex's voice was barely above a whisper, her face was filled with fear. "Dean… you're scaring me."

Finally, a little emotion showed on Dean's face, he looked away, shook his head a little. "What other choice do I _have_?" he asked her.

"Keep _fighting_ it!" Alex told him emphatically, her heart hammering in dismay. "Say _no_. Don't let the angels _do _this crap!"

Dean was suddenly pissed. "I keep saying no, they keep screwing with the people I love!" he nearly shouted, then let out a short huff, clenched his jaw. "No thank you." He got quiet, looked down. And then put a hand on his face tiredly, looking like the picture of defeat. "There's literally _no other choice_ left, Al," he told her, gesturing with his hand now emphatically. "Try to understand that." He looked wrecked inside, wouldn't look at her. "If I can keep _one _of you alive… that's better than nothing, right?"

Alex's blood went cold when she realized what he meant. "Don't choose me over Sam, Dean—" she said softly, becoming suddenly breathless in horror, "don't tell me you're gonna_ do that!_"

Dean's eyes met hers and Alex saw that was _exactly_ what he was thinking about doing. She literally grabbed him by both arms, dug her fingers into his arms, shook him almost, suddenly so angry and scared shitless. "We all go down fighting _together_ or we beat this somehow but we are not_ letting Sam die_ so we can live!"

Dean didn't tell her to get off of him, didn't yank away, didn't rant at her. He just stood there. "I mean, I don't care if I live," he said with heartbreaking earnestness. "I just want one of you two to survive this."

Filled with so much indignant anger, Alex shook him. "Well _I _care if you live, Dean!" she shouted. "_I_ do!"

He finally pulled away from her, put his walls up, no longer reachable at all. "Thanks," he said sarcastically. "Appreciate it."

Alex could have slapped him. Instead she just looked at him in complete disgust. "What is _wrong _with you?!"

He waved her away, as if he were annoyed, and he sat down on the bed, kicked his feet up in front of himself. Shut his eyes and folded his arms. Alex stared at him. Was he really just going to lay there? Ignore her? Say all that crap and then shut her out?

A couple hours later, this is how Sam found them: Dean on the bed, arms folded shut, eyes closed. Alex on her bed, turned away from him. Stony silence filling the room.

Dean cracked an eye open when Sam came in. "Where you been?" he asked.

"Drinkin'," Sam said. "You rebel," Dean wisecracked, lacking enthusiasm. Alex turned a little, acknowledging Sam with a glance. Sam paused, looking between both of his siblings and their body language, and his eyes narrowed slightly, eyebrows pressing together. "Something going on here?"

Dean glanced Alex's way. She'd sat up on her bed now, shoes on the bed, her back against the headboard. "Nah," Dean said.

Sam wasn't totally convinced, but had other things on his mind. "So, get this. I just got kicked out of the bar… because it was _curfew_." Sam stood, folded his arms, waited expectantly for a reaction. Alex just looked at Sam blankly. Curfew?

"Right," Dean replied, not sounding like he gave a damn either way.

"You hear they shut down the cell towers?" Sam asked, looking between both of his siblings. "No. That's, uh, news to me," was Dean's reply. _So that's why my phone hasn't had a signal for the past hour_, Alex thought morosely.

Sam was pacing a little now, agitated, animated. "Yeah. No cable, internet. Total cut off from the '_corruption of the outside world_.'" Sam said, making angry, sarcastic air quotes over those words. Alex was listening, but said nothing.

"Huh," Dean commented.

Sam stood there, looked at his sister, who was taking a huge swig of Jack, then his brother, who looked like he couldn't even_ think_ about giving a fuck. "Are you guys hearing me?" Sam asked, bemused, making a weird face. "They're turning this place into some kind of fundamentalist compound."

"Yeah, I think we got it," Dean muttered, arms still crossed.

"And all you've got's a 'hmm?'" Sam asked judgmentally. "What's wrong with you?"

Alex expected Dean to fly off the handle again, rant about the apocalypse and Michael and Lucifer. But instead Dean just shrugged, swung his legs over the edge of the bed tiredly. "I get it, Sam. I just don't care."

"_What_?"

"What difference does it make?" Dean asked, giving Sam a weird, cynical little smile.

Shocked, Sam's immediate response was "it makes a hell of a—" he stopped, started approaching Dean, getting riled. "At what point does this become _too far_ for you?" Sam sat across from Dean, began listing off everything wrong. "Stoning? Poisoned Kool-Aid? The angels are_ toying _with these people!"

"Angel world, angel rules, man," was Dean's indifferent reply.

"And since when is that okay with you?" Sam demanded. "Since the angels got the only lifeboats on the Titanic," Dean said sarcastically, and stood up, went over to the coffee maker, leaving Sam to watch in stunned disbelief. "I mean, who exactly is supposed to come along and save these people? It was supposed to be us, but…" he poured himself some coffee, the rest out of the pot, he sounded calm, certain. "_We _can't do it."

"So what?" Sam questioned, beginning to sound less angry, more afraid. "You wanna, you wanna just want to stop fighting, roll over?"

Dean shrugged, took a sip of his coffee. "I dunno, maybe," Dean said, his uncaring attitude clearly getting under Sam's skin. And then suddenly Sam turned, fixed Alex with a pointed, expectant look.

"And what about you, Alex?" her twin questioned. "You done fighting too?"

Alex held the bottle of whiskey close. Her gaze faltered. "No," she said.

Sam shook his head just barely, gave a soft huff of disbelief. "Why don't I believe you?" Alex looked at her twin guiltily. "Maybe because she's seeing reality for what it is," Dean cut in, looking at Sam sharply from over his cup of coffee.

Sam's jaw worked oddly. He tried a smile, but looked like a barely restrained angry bull instead. "Don't say that."

"Why not?" was Dean's reply.

"Cuz you can't do this to me," Sam said, suddenly intensely emotional. "To _us_," he added, clearly referring to himself and Alex. Sam stood up from the bed finally, not finished, getting zealous. "Cuz if _you_ aren't fighting, how the hell are _we_ supposed to? Dean, you can't give up now, not _now_."

"Actually, I can," was Dean's unmoved, unaffected reply. And Sam seemed to explode at that comment.

"Are you friggin' _serious_?" he demanded, approaching Dean. "No, you can't, I won't _let you_! You can't do this to me—to her!" he jabbed a finger at Alex, who still sat on the bed, silent. "Dean—I got one thing, _one thing_, keeping me going—my _family_. Us!" Sam threw his arms out wide, desperate. "You think you're the only one white-knuckling it here? We _need_ you. We can't _count _on anyone else—what am I supposed to do if you give up?"

"I dunno Sam!" Dean thundered, setting his coffee mug down with a loud thud, finally showing a little emotion. He stared at the counter where coffee now leaked out of the cracked mug. He sounded broken. "I'm done with taking care of everyone else's problems."

Alex was looking at Dean in total, defeated heartbreak, and Sam, looking back at her, seemed to have had enough, approached Dean, got in his face. "Okay, you know what? It's bad enough you're pulling this crap on _me_, but do you see what you're doing? You're dragging her down with you!"

"I'm facing reality, Sam, and you should too," Dean said, cool, calm, collected, aloof again, enraging his brother even further. "_What _reality?" Sam demanded in a near-shout. "You're giving up, you're deciding to pussy out because you're_ tired of fighting_?" Sam _was _shouting now. "We're _all_ tired of fighting. But that doesn't mean we _stop_!"

Dean looked at Sam, shook his head hollowly, seeming to be entirely over the entire exchange. "You know, I don't need this crap from you," he said, already on his way out, grabbing his jacket from where he'd tossed it before. "I got to clear my head," he muttered, leaving without a backward glance.

"Come on Dean—_Dean_!" Sam appealed. "It's past curfew." The door shut, Sam turned around, a hand in his hair. "It's past curfew." He sighed in frustration. "What the _hell_ is his problem?" Sam complained to the air in front of him, then he pushed his anger aside, looked at his twin appraisingly, came over to her, sat beside her feet, near the end of the bed. "You okay? You don't look so good."

Her eyes flickered up to his. "I'm not."

Sam looked like he was trying to be reassuring. "He'll pull through. It's just... a bad day or something."

It was nice of him, really, to try to comfort her. But she was so far past comforting, too busy staring reality down the barrel. "You really believe that, Sam?" she asked him. "That any of us are gonna 'pull through'?"

Sam looked chastened, then hurt, like her suggestion was personally offensive to him.

"I used to think we would," Alex continued, then shrugged shallowly. "Now…" she trailed off, defeated.

"Stop that," Sam said, suddenly dark, angry, and standing up. "You sound just _like him_." There was a tense silence and Alex was shocked, felt small and stricken. Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, then refocused, turned back toward her. "All I'm saying is… you can't give up. Not yet. Cuz I'm _not_. Please."

Alex didn't want to tell him how hopeless she felt—Sam didn't look like he could take another blow. So she forced herself to nod—give him a wan smile. She couldn't think of anything to say. "I'll try, Sammy."

He looked at her sadly—like he saw that her heart wasn't in it. But he said nothing else. Mirrored her nod, the wan smile. "Okay. Good." He sighed heavily, ran his hand through his hair, looked around the room, so world-weary. "Look‚ I've got some books I borrowed from Bobby I've been meaning to read. You wanna help me?" he paused. "Might have some useful information in there about… all this." He gestured vaguely.

Research. Sounded like an okay distraction from all this horrible misery. It was better than laying in bed drunk. "Sure. Yeah, but only if I can get some coffee." She paused, looked at the bottle in her hand. It was a lot emptier than it had been when she'd first gotten her hands on it. "I'm sort of a little wasted."

Sam chuckled a little, shrugged, smiled kind of mischievously. "Yeah, I am too."

Alex shook her head fondly at him, went over and started working on making a fresh pot of coffee.

* * *

**Forty-Five Minutes Later**

Sam walked across the room, dug in his duffel for another book. "I'm pretty sure it was in this one," he said loudly, loud enough for Alex to hear him in the bathroom. "Sam!" she shouted back, exasperated just like he knew she would be. "How many times do I have to tell you—don't talk to me while I'm in here?!"

He chuckled, heard the sink water running. Pictured her rolling her eyes. Sam turned, new volume in hand, heading back to where they'd been sitting for the past little bit, paging through ancient volumes together and trying to sober up. Sam suddenly heard a noise behind him, turned to see—Castiel? In front of the motel refrigerator, holding the door open.

"I got your message," Cas said, staring into the refrigerator aimlessly. He sounded irritated. "It was long, your message. And I find the sound of your voice... grating." He shut the refrigerator door clumsily, backed away from it—_stumbled_.

Sam watched, wide-eyed. "What's wrong with you?" Cas wobbled a little in the kitchen. Sam had a sudden, crazy theory._ No… no way! _He looked at Cas a second longer, barely daring to believe it. "Are you… _drunk_?"

"_No_!" Cas replied gruffly, walked forward, only just catching himself against the wrought-iron partition. Sam's eyebrows shot up high. And Cas seemed to change his mind. "…_Yes_." Said it with a lot of attitude, too. Sam looked at the angel oddly, in disbelief.

The bathroom door opened and his sister came out. Cas saw her and his expression changed from angry annoyance to almost happiness. He clung onto the partition as Alex stopped, seeing him too. "_Hi_, Cas!" she said, sounding really surprised but pleasantly so, and she was smiling at the angel, _really _smiling—actually, Sam hadn't seen her smile like that in months. Where her eyes crinkled up, her little faint dimples showed. Sam looked at Cas in confusion, whose head was leaned against the partition—his eyes soft, a little smile on his face, too. "Hello, Alex," the angel greeted in return, and Sam felt his sister come to his side.

"You okay?" she asked Cas, and he looked like he had to think about it. She was looking Cas up and down, probably noticing the same thing that Sam had—the angel was toasted. "I can stand up for short periods of time now," he said, still looking at her. "You're... wearing the dress again," he said, and Sam was suddenly mortified, realizing that was what Alex had been wearing the night that he'd seen them making out. And Cas apparently remembered that too, _liked_ it even.

Uncomfortable, Sam switched subjects, tried to get Cas's attention. "What… uh, what the hell _happened_ to you?"

Castiel turned his attention back to Sam, seeming annoyed. "I found a liquor store."

"And?" Sam prompted, not understanding.

"And I _drank it_," he said, sounding pissy, like Sam should have known that already. Cas looked at Alex again, the attitude suddenly gone. In its place, deep, drunken sadness. "I'm sorry you have to see me like this," Cas said, to which Alex just shrugged. She looked understanding, fond. "You've seen _me_ drunk." She squinted a little, thinking about something. "In fact, I'm kinda drunk right now."

Cas didn't blink or waver. "Still."

Sam looked between the two of them, surprised—they were having some kind of wordless conversation with their eyes almost… and Sam realized he hadn't noticed until now how the two of them seemed really close, in a way he couldn't put his finger on. He didn't get to think about it any longer. Cas finally left the partition, walking unsteadily toward Sam—who held two hands, just in case—Cas looked like he might fall down any second. "Whoa. There you go. Easy. Are you okay?"

Blinking slowly, sleepily, Cas motioned for Sam to come closer, like he had something to tell him. "Don't ask stupid questions," Cas grumbled in Sam's ear, and Sam was shocked, watching the angel in disbelief. Alex, just behind Sam, was what the angel was looking at now—he'd noticed the scrape on the side of her face and was frowning at it. He seemed to remember himself a little bit, looked at Sam intently. "Tell me what you called me about." He leaned back against a chair, seeming woozy, but trying to focus.

"T-there have been these—these demon attacks," Sam said. "Massive, right on the edge of town. And we can't figure out why they're—"

"Any sign of angels?" Cas asked, cutting Sam off. He was looking at Alex, and she at him. And Sam wondered if Cas was even listening to his reply. "Uh, sort of. They've been speaking to this prophet—this girl, Leah Gideon."

"She's not a prophet," Cas said immediately.

"I'm pretty sure she is," Sam said. "Visions, headaches—the whole package."

At that point, Cas finally looked away from Alex, gave Sam almost an eye roll. "The names of _all_ the prophets—they're seared into my brain," he said, being downright sassy. "Leah Gideon is not one of them."

Sam stared at Cas, baffled. "If she's not a prophet, what is she?" Alex asked. Castiel looked at her, seemed to be struggling to think clearly. "False… prophet."

"What?" Sam asked, not catching what he'd said. Castiel stood up again, wobbled a little. "I think I know what she is but… I need to get a book."

"A book?" Sam repeated. Alex was still hovering at Sam's side.

"Yes, a _book_," Cas responded. "The thing with pages and a cover and words inside."

Sam blinked, surprised and even amused by the angel's use of sarcasm. "I know what a _book_ is, Cas."

Cas was looking down at the ground, frowning. He sounded depressed. "I am very, very drunk," he said, stating the absolute obvious.

Trying to refocus the guy, Sam put a hand on the angel's shoulder. "Where do you get this book from, Cas? Can I find it at the church library or—"

"Don't be stupid," Castiel slurred. "It's at The Vatican." He straightened a little. "I'll go get it."

Sam held his hands out again. "Okay. Well whoa, whoa, wait… I don't know if you should go stumbling around in Italy by yourself."

Castiel's eyes narrowed just slightly. And then nodded, like he understood Sam's suggestion. "Yes. Good." He almost smiled, his chin raising a little bit. "I'll take Alex."

"No wait I meant—" they were gone. Sam threw his hands in the air. "I meant _me_."

* * *

"Whoa—" Alex said, staring. They were suddenly standing in a totally different place—above them, arched ceilings etched with Renaissance depictions of saints and angels—below their feet, immaculate marble checkered floors—intricate columns lined the hall they stood in. Was this the Vatican Library? She didn't see books anywhere. Maybe this was an entry hall or something. She remembered Cas, looked to her side—saw that he was looking at he as he came closer to face her, wobbling a little. He brushed two fingers against her cheekbone, where she'd gotten scraped that morning.

"You… didn't have that yesterday," he said, sounding disturbed. The touch and intense gaze startled her.

"Yeah, well, we got attacked by demons this morning," Alex said, shrugging a little. Trying not to notice how close he was or how his concern made her feel. His eyes met hers. Then flickered down to her lips. And then his knees seemed to buckle for a second, he almost fell sideways, and she grabbed him. "Whoa," she told him, held him still. "Are you—?" she asked. He tried to stand up, unassisted. "It's alright," he said, blinking blearily. "I've… _got_... this."

Alex spied a water fountain over beside a doorway labeled _il bagno_, and gently, she began to steer him that way. He looked confused. "Drink some water," she said, motioning to the fountain. "It'll help sober you up." She paused. "Maybe."

He looked uncertain about that, but did what she said. And Alex watched her drunk guardian angel lean awkwardly over a water fountain. He'd never have used one before, she realized, and smiled a little, watching him as he processed it, sputtered a little, then figured it out. He stopped after ten seconds. "More," Alex told him. After fifty shelves of alcohol, he probably should drink a whole swimming pool. She felt herself smiling a little as she folded her arms, leaned shoulder-first into the wall, watched him.

Today had been weird. To say the least. Well, maybe weird wasn't the right word. Horrible. Up until now. Just being close to Cas was a relief, made her feel a lot better. He finished drinking the water, raised his head up, squinted his eyes. "Now my mouth feels cold," he said. It wasn't a complaint. More of an observation.

"Should you have some, too?" he asked, and Alex opened her mouth to decline… then realized she probably should. She felt really awkward getting the water though, felt Cas watching her the whole time. Sure enough, when she straightened, his eyes were very full, gazing at her openly. And Alex felt herself step back, just a little—intimidated suddenly. By how much control he didn't even know he had over her... because when he looked at her like that, her entire body flushed over immediately.

"Uh, okay, let's go find this book," Alex redirected, anxious to get a move on and escape her own feelings. He seemed to remember. "Yes. Of course. This way." He began to lead them down the hallway, watching her as she took everything in. He shuffled almost, walking in a rambling, off balance way. "Do you... like it?" he asked after a couple seconds.

"What, this place? Yeah! It's… amazing." Amazing was barely the right word. The gilded columns, intricate painted ceilings and walls—she imagined how much time and work must have gone into creating this place. "I like it when you like things," Cas said, and Alex looked away from the ceiling—he had this little smile on his face, his eyes were heavy-lidded—wow, he was _hammered_. And cute as hell. She tucked a little hair behind her ear, not sure how to reply.

His footsteps clicked a little louder than hers, erratic and stumbling against the polished marble floor. "Only the Pope is allowed to borrow from the archives," Castiel told her absently, slurring a little. "This place has some of the oldest volumes on earth."

"And which one are we after?" Alex asked.

"It's the _Vaticanus Graecus_," he replied. "Very old. Very detailed."

"Where_ are_ the books, anyway?" Alex asked. She assumed they were headed that way, but if this was part of the library, it sure was lacking in the book department. It was just huge, long hall of columns.

"The books are in the library," Cas answered her factually. _Well, duh… _"There are over a million books here."

Alex made an overly incredulous face. "You picked a good night to get wasted, Cas." She remembered how drunk she was, offhandedly, and added sort of somberly, "so did I." She expelled a heavy breath, forced herself to focus. She really wasn't _that _drunk. And then Cas swayed a little bit, she quickly stopped, bracing him. He looked at her with deep, dark eyes and Alex literally felt her body flush over in unexpected desire. _Dammit, Cas._ He needed to stop doing this to her. A little frustrated, she turned away, leaving him to wobble after her. She didn't really know where she was supposed to be going, but this long hallway seemed to have one general direction: straight. Ahead there was a grand archway entrance into what looked like a grand room. After a couple seconds Alex slowed down to Cas's pace, remembering that he was inebriated. As if on cue, he staggered slightly away from her, and she grabbed the sleeve of his coat, catching him, helping him right himself.

"Whoa there, cowboy," she told him, chuckling a little now. He looked at her oddly, opened his mouth to say something, but she held up her hand. "I know, I know, you're not a cowboy," she said, before he could try to correct her. The hand motion she'd made set her off balance and she stopped walking, stumbling slightly, surprised—she usually could hold her alcohol better than that. He caught her this time, grabbing her around the wrist to keep her from falling over. Alex reflected briefly how funny this was, heard herself giggle a little drunkenly. It was perfect irony… two wasted people stumbling around the Vatican. Well, a wasted person and a wasted angel. That was even funnier, wasn't it? Alex grinned up at him, then stopped. He was looking at her in a way that reminded her of the looks he'd given her when they'd been under Famine's influence.

And then she realized how his hand felt closed around her wrist, how much she liked the way his thumb brushed up against the thin, bare skin of her wrist bone—the simple touch made her buzz all over. She looked down at his hand, gazed at it. She liked how it looked, whenever he had a hand on her. His skin was a shade darker than hers. His hands looked so boyish. Was he really centuries old? Now the sight of his hand on her wrist saddened her. She longed for him so desperately, and didn't understand. She pulled her wrist away, feeling a pang of pain in the vicinity of her heart.

Again, she began to walk forward, leaving Cas to trail after her again. He was an angel, he'd be fine if he fell over. She needed to get it together—all of that whiskey had been a bad idea. She was annoyed with herself, at her lack of ability to control herself when it came to Cas. How was she supposed to feel less or make the intense longing stop? It was always growing and increasing. Confused and sullen, Alex glanced back at Cas, who was concentrating hard on walking. _Jesus_. She forgot her own misery for a second, thinking again of how horrible he had to feel to be wasted like this. He had been so aloof and untouchable when she first met him. These days, she often forgot he was an angel. To her, he seemed like a man. A good man.

She watched the ground absently as she walked forward, but was caught suddenly by the arm, jarred to a halt—and she looked at Cas in confusion, then realized she hadn't been going straight anymore, that she had been about to run into the side of the grand doorway she'd been walking toward.

"Careful," he said, glanced down at his hand that held her arm—there was a long pause, and then he let go, began to lead the way into the grand room, which Alex realized wasn't a room—it was a great hall. Above them an all-glass atrium arched—a dark starry sky was visible through the panes, the high and bright silver moon cast a cool, faint blue glow over everything. Centered underneath the dome a white marble statue of a male saint stood silent and watchful—on either side of the saint, stretching out for what looked like well over the length of a football field, two long halls. These halls were lined on either side with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Above the halls were beautiful stained glass ceilings. It was beautiful, almost felt magical…

Cas was heading to the hall to the left, and she followed, casting her gaze around, gawking, trying to take in everything as she followed. Forgetting everything for a second, just amazed at the intricacy of this place. Only the Pope was allowed in here? It seemed a waste that only one person would be granted access to all of this. The smell of old paper and musty book bindings hung thickly in the air here. Alex was slowly realizing how _huge_ a place this was—remembered what Cas had said about millions of books—and suddenly she felt overwhelmed—how were they going to find _one book_ in all of these? Did Cas even know where it was? He seemed kind of aimless. The exact second she thought that, he stopped, turned, looked at her with his arms hanging at his sides—and she sort of got the impression that he didn't have a clue what he was doing. He looked drunk as hell. Feeling overwhelmed again, she looked down the row of books they were next to. There were so many volumes. The shelves were crammed, there wasn't an empty space anywhere. And none of them had call numbers like books in America did—how the hell were these books organized, anyway? She pulled one out, looking at the spine of it, then the inside cover.

Cas watched Alex as she turned over the old volume in her hands. She looked so beautiful with the moonlight illuminating her. She seemed to glow almost, radiant, and he drank in the sight of her—the way her slender fingers splayed against the book's cover, the way her tousled dark hair tumbled over her bare shoulders, the small arcing neck, the sharp, artful lines of her jaw, her full soft lips… lips he had kissed more times than he should have, and yet not enough at all… he wondered dimly why he wasn't supposed to kiss her again. It had seemed very clear to him a day ago, but now he didn't really remember or care. He just _wanted._

Alex slid the book back onto the shelf, sounding sort of frustrated. "Is there a reference desk or a—" she started, turning back toward him, but Cas—who knew exactly where the _Vaticanus Graecus_ was, who didn't need help locating it—it was on the shelf across from the one she was standing next to, actually—all he could focus on was her, even though his ability to focus was greatly diminished right now. The library was tilted a little, and he felt gravity pulling down on his left shoulder, he leaned oddly, realizing he was falling. He overcompensated, jerking to the right and stumbling sideways and forward, almost falling—but she darted forward in a huge stride, she braced him, grabbed him by either arm, trying to help steady him.

Cas clung onto her by the arms tightly because she was the only thing that was stable in the world right now—he waited for everything to stop spinning—looked up from the ground and into her face. She looked kind of sympathetic and amused at his condition and Cas tilted his head to the side, wondering how she could be drunk too and not jumbled like he was—then he noticed that his whole body was leaning the way he'd tilted his head—he jerked oddly when he realized, when he tried to stand straight again. But instead of righting himself, he stumbled them forward, knocking Alex's back up against the bookshelf—and Cas just barely managed to catch himself, one of his hands gripping the bookshelf for balance, the other still clenching her arm—he tried to remember what she had asked him a minute ago but couldn't quite recall—and then he was noticing how she was pinned underneath him and he liked that, how she was staring up at him with wide, surprised eyes. Faintly, beyond the blur caused by alcohol, he thought maybe he should probably stand up, right himself, move away. But he didn't _want_ to move.

Well. He_ did _want to move. Closer. And so he did, a little, so close that one of the sides of his shoes hit against the sides of hers, his trench coat brushed up against the sides of her bare knees. "W-what are you doing?" she asked, looking up at him with those big, astonished eyes of hers.

Her question paused him. What _was_ he doing? He thought about it, a little taken aback by the question and by the realization that he really didn't know what he was doing—it was all instinct and craving that drove him now. _What was he doing_? He couldn't answer that, his brain seemed unable to give him an answer. He only knew what he _wanted_... and that was her. He'd laid there on the sidewalk all day, thinking of how she had been _dead and lost_ only a day ago—and even _now_ she had a new wound on her cheekbone, a reminder that she was fleeting and mortal, transient… that someday he would exist and she wouldn't—but now, right now, she was alive and _here with him _and everything about her was luminous, divine, desirable—Castiel was drunk on alcohol and the nearness of her, he was feeling the things he was usually able to repress breaking free: the mounting hunger to be close to her, to have her. To never leave her. Everything else he had ever believed in or hoped for had proven flimsy and false, but this? _Her_? She was real, she was the realest thing he could think of, and he moved even closer, watching her unceasingly as she swallowed, stared at him, her mouth open a little.

He felt bolder than he ever had; bolder and more foolish, brazen. It should have worried him, it should have halted him. But he _didn't care_.

Later, he would reflect that in _this very moment _he started a fire that would blaze out of control. But right now—he could bring himself to care about nothing, literally _nothing_ except the despair he felt at how beautiful she was, how much he needed to know she was alive and maybe feel alive, himself, too. Cas was still holding onto one of her upper arms and he looked down at his hand, moved his thumb just a little across her soft skin, noticing how large his hand seemed on her arm—and protective feelings welled up inside of him. He looked her in the eye again, not sure why he had ever thought it was wrong to be with her in any way. He thought about her question again. _What was he doing?_ What he _wanted_.

Alex was frozen, unsure what was happening, only that they were suddenly in this moment where the air had left the room, where she couldn't seem to breathe anymore. His expression seemed to burn, to smolder as his slid his hand up her arm and pressed it against the front of her shoulder, a touch that seemed very forward and blunt, filled with intention. His eyes were darker than normal as they flickered from her eyes to her lips, then back again—slowly, unabashedly. "I would very much like to kiss you right now," he said in a husky, low, drunken voice.

Her heart fluttered in her chest and she withered under his unflinching gaze that was so open, so filled with longing… she almost leaned in to answer him with a kiss him right away, but then she stopped, hesitated, forcing herself to remember that he was drunk off his ass—she forced herself to remember that apparently they weren't supposed to _do this_, to keep snatching these brief moments of the most beautiful closeness she had ever known… she should tell him no right now, shouldn't she? But she didn't. The thought of saying no seemed to be the most awful thing she could think of—that, combined with knowing how much of a joke her life was, how her brothers were good as dead, how the world would probably end any day—all of that plus the fact that she was a little drunk, too—it all took away her ability to care about anything except taking_ any_ moment with Castiel that she could get. Because being with him was one of the only bright spots left in her existence.

_I would very much like to kiss you,_ he'd said.

And given over to bold and foolish courage thanks to all the whiskey, she raised her chin a little—heart hammering wildly, ever part of her screaming for his lips on hers—"so then _do it_," she challenged him. The words had barely even left her mouth before he shocked her with the speed in which he bridged the gap between them. He crushed his lips against hers, grabbing her by the back of the head, bearing down on her heavily and clumsily—he made a low sound in the back of his throat, pressing her up against the shelves without really meaning to as he kissed her with fierce sloppiness, his free hand still bracing himself against the shelf beside her—he was trying not to fall down. Against Alex's back, books poked uncomfortably—his mouth tasted like whiskey—and this all seemed so wrong but she just felt insane levels of desire course through her, washing away her clarity, her hesitation.

Floundering underneath the brute force of his kiss, trying to get more of him somehow, her hands were on his lapels, tugging him toward her more. His hand tightened on the back of her head, he was dominating the kiss completely—and even as his mouth moved over hers, his feet shuffled a little, he stood a little straighter, seemed to situate himself a little bit better where he could stand on his own two feet again. His free arm came to wrap around her waist tightly, his hand pressing flat against her back and Alex whimpered softly as their bodies pressed flush together. She hadn't realized how desperate she'd been for this—how had she forgotten perfect it felt to be held by him? His mouth was less harsh on hers now, more intimate and searching—which only maddened her more.

Kind of frantically—she just needed_ so badly_ to feel him, touch him—her hands slipped beneath both his coat and jacket, fingers curling around the tops of his shoulders and into the thin fabric of his white dress shirt—she could feel the ridges of his collarbones beneath her palms and how taut the skin of his shoulders and upper chest was. He groaned softly into her mouth as they kissed, he pulled her closer when her hands came up to cup either side of his face—his grip was gentler now, less domineering. His hand came forward from the back of her head and she was surprised when he touched the side of her neck, tracing his fingers down in an exploratory, reverent way. The pads of his fingers left a trail of fire against the sensitive skin there, her breath caught in her throat, her hands fell away from his face to grab onto his arms and she hung on tightly, fingernails digging into the thick fabric of the trench coat.

In a very swift, unexpected swoop, Cas shocked her when his hand moved down from her lower back to boldly grasp her rear, pulling her tightly against him—and as their bodies crushed against each other's she gasped into his mouth, louder than she meant to—because it was suddenly and abundantly clear to her that wasn't she the only one who was extremely aroused.

She was a little mortified at how loud that sound she'd made was, especially when he drew back, just a little—his mouth really close to hers—like he was gauging her reaction. She felt sort of small and helpless, caught off guard by what he was doing—suddenly backpedaling mentally—_what was happening_? Sober, Cas would never do this, would he? The only time he'd been so forward and sexual like this was under the influence of Famine and she was suddenly afraid to continue even as, at the same time, she wanted nothing more than to keep going, see where it went, wrap herself in him completely and never leave.

Cas was leaning in to kiss her again but Alex tensed up, hands pressed against his chest lightly, and he stopped, looked at her questioningly. "I thought—I thought we weren't supposed to… to do this," she stumbled out breathlessly, feeling flushed and muddled, trying to do the right thing but regretting it immediately, knowing she had just ruined the moment, destroyed it. She expected him to get that dawning look of '_oh_' that he always got when they got too close. But this time, that look didn't come across his face. Not even for a second. He didn't blink, his predatory, consuming gaze stayed on hers steadily. "I don't care anymore," he said, slurring just a little—and if it were possible, his voice was even deeper than it ever had been before, it was filled with so much desire that it made her chest constrict. He leaned in to kiss her, and she almost dropped it, almost just gave up and gave in—but her conscience won out over her lust and she did the thing she never thought she would do—she held him back firmly, stopped him. "Cas you're _drunk_," she protested, not sure how else to put it, afraid she was taking advantage of him.

There was a short silence. "And?" he asked, seeming not to understand or perhaps care about the relevance of fact. One of his eyebrows was raising almost imperceptibly, and he was making this so damn hard for her! And? _And we shouldn't do this. And you're not in your right mind. And this is dangerous, kissing me like this when I feel the way I do about you. And I'm drunk too, and you've told me a hundred times we can't, so why are we, anyway? _She didn't want to put the brakes on this, but she knew that they were both not clear-minded. Still, she struggled for clarity, tried to do what was right.

"And I don't think you'd _do_ this if you were sober," she answered falteringly, knowing_ that _would do it,_ that_ would bring him to his senses. So when he said what he did next, she was blown away.

"Maybe not but," he answered—his eyes were dark and unmistakably sultry, he was practically breathing down her neck, he was so close. "I'd want to."

Those last three words did her in. Whatever resolve she had, whatever strength, whatever morality… it was all smashed to pieces and she was abruptly kissing him again, but this time she wasn't just being kissed—_she_ was kissing _him_ and hard, fast, passionately. He seemed to notice, too, because he groaned a little, less dominant than before, a little surprised by her ferocity for a moment. Her hands had gripped him tight behind his neck and head; she pressed her body against his, not holding back anymore, not at all. And then he regained his bravado, began returning the kiss with growing intensity, pushing her into the bookcase, hard, as his hands began to roam up and down her sides possessively, with growing boldness.

He drew back just a little, his chin down, mouth open as he breathed noisily—he watched her reaction as his right hand dropped lower, his fingertips tracing down across her hip bone, then lower still, ghosting along the incredibly sensitive space between her hip and her upper thigh. She stared up at him in shock, couldn't believe how forward, how blatant he was being—she could barely breathe at this point, intimidated under his intense gaze and touch. All of her temporary bravery dissipated, she quivered beneath the weight of his hand, and even more so when his hand came back to brace against her hip—the fingers tightened, he kissed her again, slowly this time, burningly. In her belly, so much hot, building pleasure pooled and she was afraid of it suddenly; she was overwhelmed, frantic for something, feeling like everything inside of her was clawing at the walls.

His entire body was invested and involved in this searching, intimate kiss, and she withered beneath it, a lost cause; humbled and stunned by him, by how much visceral desire and conviction she felt with every movement of his mouth on hers. After a second, at the same time, out of breath, they pulled apart a little, breathing each other's air heavily as their foreheads pressed against the other's. Cas's hand moved from her hip, up her side a little, then back down, then across her lower abdomen, feeling her through the dress, stretching his fingers across her, pressing them in and testing the feeling of her—and she couldn't tell if he was being teasing or if it was an accident, but his hand passed _so close _to the place she desperately wanted to be touched, but it never did actually touch her there. Each time it came anywhere close she tensed up, gritted her teeth, her body screaming for him to touch her there—but his hand just kept tracing back and forth across her stomach, a little lower, then back to her hip as he stole another sloppy kiss or two. And about the third time he did this, Alex got brave, or stupid maybe, too overcome with raw desire to control herself.

She looked him in the eye, breathless, grabbed his hand, stopping it mid-movement. He seemed a little surprised, but not as surprised as when she slid her hand up to grasp his wrist firmly. Not even able to believe what she was about to do, Alex forced herself not to think about it, just to _do it_. Holding him by the wrist, she moved his hand down slowly. He let her, watched sort of in confusion—and then realization dawned over his features. Alex's breath caught spectacularly and noisily in her throat when his hand touched her there, where she was the warmest—her body literally shuddered with anticipation and relief all at the same time. Even through two layers of clothing—her underwear, the dress—feeling his hand against her there was… there were no words or coherent thoughts. Breathily, she moaned through her just-dropped-open mouth. Cas was looking at her in total wide-eyed surprise—surprise that was not just surprise, but also wanton awareness—which only increased on his face when her hand moved from his wrist to cover his hand, her fingers closed over his. He remained frozen with bated breath, watching her and waiting to see what she was going to do next.

She almost didn't, she almost let the sudden anxious and shy fear rule her body—but somehow she forged ahead, driven on by the all-consuming desire and by the courage her tipsy state afforded her—but maybe even more so by the way Cas was looking at her almost in _adoration_, like everything she was doing was astounding magic to him—Alex bit her lip, feeling exposed and defenseless, unable to look at him as with her hand over his, she shyly showed him what to do, how to move his hand on her—and immediately she began to fall apart at the seams. Her forehead and brows twisted in strained, expectant focus, and she was shocked at herself. At how much she wanted him, at how blunt she was being, but most of all, how willing _he_ seemed.

Her eyes flickered from his face to down and to the side constantly. He kept looking at their hands and then her, his mouth open—he looked awestruck, like he couldn't believe she was letting him touch her like that. And Alex was rapidly forgetting her shyness as the reality—Castiel touching her so sensually—sank in anew. She was barely able to concentrate because of the insane waves of pleasure it sent ricocheting throughout her entire body. She felt hot all over, and even biting her lip didn't work anymore—she was gasping and panting involuntarily, her vocal chords were spastically let out little moans without her permission. Her other hand dug fingers into his neck with painful force, but he didn't seem to notice.

She felt completely laid bare, unsure, and she was afraid again, afraid to look at him fully, afraid he would be judging her suddenly or that the sounds she was making would have left a confused, disconnected look on his face. But she did look at him, and she was thunderstruck: he was looking at her with so much absolute adoring fascination, his eyes were bright and awed—and _that_—that look made her whimper, or maybe it was how his hand felt against her. Her hand stayed over his as his free arm wrapped around her waist again, pulling her tight against him, his mouth seeking hers again, and when he found it, he kissed her more deeply than he ever had, his tongue sweeping over hers as he continued to bear down on her, pressing himself into their hands, a beautifully frustrated sound escaping his throat. And they existed for a moment in this crazy haze of grinding, rubbing, sloppy, messy, loud kissing, and Alex almost sobbed as the pressure and intensity built up to unmanageable levels—

And then Cas's hand pulled away, left her and she was confused, disenchanted, let down, not sure why… and then she felt his hand grazing up the bare skin of her inner thigh and she shuddered against his mouth—his hand brushed against her, he hesitantly ran his fingers across the underwear between her legs, and Alex gripped him by the shoulders tightly, a desperate sound like "_ahh_" tearing out of her throat as she trembled, going slack against the bookshelf, completely at his mercy, in total shock, not even sure how this was happening at all.

His hand had skimmed up underneath the dress, and it now pressed flat against her bare stomach, fingers curling in just slightly. Her breathing hitched—his hand felt so big on her, she felt so very vulnerable to him; like right now she would let him do _anything _to her, anything at all. His dark eyes held her gaze—and his hand turned, fingers pointing down now, tracing their way lower, rendering her completely incapable as the light touch trailed scorching electricity across her skin—and then when his fingers moved past the waistband of her underwear, made contact with the place she ached for him the most—"ah, _fuck_!" she exclaimed in an astounded, strangled voice, surprising them both. "_Cas_!"

He looked at her in total shock, frozen. Had he done something wrong? "Should I stop?" he asked, confused, afraid he had misunderstood or done the wrong thing. But she shook her head immediately. "N-_no_…!" she gasped, looking at him with eyes wide, watching him in expectancy and disbelief. And Castiel suddenly realized how she_ felt _to him, and his ability to breathe lessened. Beneath his fingers there was a stunning wet heat—a pliable softness like no other texture or sensation he had ever encountered—and he wasn't sure how he was _supposed_ to react to it, but the sensation only inspired greater desire, greater awe of her and this moment, and his heart hammered into his throat, he felt like he was going to burst out of his skin—she looked so desperate for something, so needy and he realized she was waiting for him to continue—and he remembered how she had shown him a minute ago, how to move his hand. He did it, slowly, uncertainly—and she responded immediately; whimpered frantically, clutching onto him tightly. She made a loud sound as her head fell back and the sound almost made it seem like she was suffering—and for Castiel it was all intense and frightening, he wasn't sure if it were correct or not, and he stopped abruptly.

"Is this—am I doing this right?" he asked her, filled with dread that he had done it wrong, that he'd caused her pain—he watched her closely—she swallowed, breathed out, distracted, her eyebrows pressing close together, her eyes were closed. "Y-yes," she said, flustered, shy again. Her eyes opened and her pupils were dilated widely, he could barely see any of her iris at all—she looked at him like she had a minute ago, so filled with need, and she seemed hesitant to say it, her voice faltering. "I want—I want you to keep g-going."

Thunderstruck at the wanton quality of her voice, swept away by the way she felt against his hand, not even really remembering who he was or anything outside of this moment, he did exactly what she asked, and she again responded immediately, bucking in his arms almost, her soft shallow breaths and choking moans furthering his need to please her—he felt such an intense physical frustration, desire howling in his veins, curling low in his stomach—he made a soft, frustrated sound, pushed her underwear down and away, trying to get better access to touch her more fully—and the white cotton panties fell down completely to her ankles, but Cas didn't notice and it only made Alex even more desperate to give herself to him completely, for him to take her_ right there _against the library bookshelf—she whimpered again, louder this time, despairing at his touch because it was clumsy but unrestrained—her blood was pounding loudly in her ears, her body was shaking. His breathing was ragged beside her ear and she suddenly wasn't content, wasn't satisfied, realized she had to touch him, too. Her inhibitions forgotten, she reached for his belt with both of her hands, fumbled with it—could barely remember how to work the thing, her mind was so overrun—but it came undone and she pushed at his pants frantically, unbuttoning and unzipping them, all while Cas continued to breathe heavily in her ear, touch her with one hand, hold her close with the other. She wasn't sure if he even realized what she was doing.

Barely able to focus, Alex pushed his pants down and away, clumsily fumbled with the soft material of his boxer-briefs, not really sure what to do, driven by pure fanatical desire. She rubbed a hand down across the front of him, across the fabric of the boxer briefs and he made a soft, surprised sound, went still—even as she was reaching down into his boxers, finding him waiting, and she was stunned, startled, completely blown away. He was hard as a damn _rock _and warm and _Jesus Christ_, it was bigger than she'd thought—she groaned, not sure what to think or do, just… and that's when she realized he'd stopped everything that he'd been doing, that he was frozen and looking at her with this look of utter shock on his face. Like he couldn't believe she was touching him there, skin to skin, like he was aware of how defenseless he was. Like he was waiting to see what she would do next.

With total freaked out uncertainty, she gripped him gently, not sure how much was too much—and experimentally, slowly, gingerly, she moved her hand downward over his length, was rewarded with a shockingly frantic, astounded sounding groan from Cas—his eyes had squeezed closed, his mouth hung open, his eyebrows had slammed together. _Holy shit_! She went still, couldn't believe she did that to him, made him react like that—and he had opened his eyes back up, was gazing at her, totally amazed and entranced. Feeling emboldened, powerful, braver—Alex tightened her grip, did it again, and he literally fell forward toward her as another pathetic, shocked groan broke free from his mouth—he had to put his free hand out to catch himself against the bookshelf behind her, and even as he was doing that, she was stroking him again, and he made another sound, a sound he'd never made before… a soft little helpless groaning cry—and that sound, at the feeling of him in her hand—it was almost enough to make Alex come apart right then and there.

Getting fed up and frustrated and desperate and bold, she let go, pushed his boxers down, not even sure how far she pushed them, just pushed them _away _and pressed herself, dress and all, against the warmth and shape of him, her arms circling around his middle tightly. She was trying to get closer, consumed with need, lost in a drunken haze of primal need. He pressed back as he kissed her again, seeming to be over his temporary shock, seeming to be feeling as frenzied and desperate as she was—he pinned her flat against the bookshelf—and she wasn't sure how it happened but he shifted, pushed her upwards a little, and she was suddenly no longer standing on the floor—automatically, she hugged her legs around his waist, braced her hands against his shoulders… and when his hand pressed against her hip over the top of the dress, when he moved his hand up her side—she would never know if it were accidental or intentional, but that movement pulled the bunched-up skirt of her dress away from in between her legs, leaving no barrier between them at all.

And the second she felt the warm length of him pressed up against her between her legs, a frantic little groan escaped her mouth, she grabbed two fistfuls of his dark hair on either side of his head, he pulled back, mouth hanging open, looking at her like he was awed, out of it, totally gone. When he did that, when he pulled away like that—their bodies came apart too. And then, the moment that happened by accident, the moment that they would never be able to take back. They were both completely frozen, shocked, unsure how it had happened—staring breathless at each other when they felt him unintentionally nudge up against her entrance. And the silence was so great that a single pin dropping would have been too loud. _How had this happened_, Alex wondered, panicked out of nowhere, realizing that he was literally one small movement away from taking her completely, that after twenty-seven years of being untouched, she could be about to lose her virginity here tonight—and for a flickering moment, her body trembled with a deeply gripping fear, her drunken state diminishing with dizzying swiftness—because she realized how _real_ this was and how this _might actually happen_ and how much that _scared _her—to be so known, so torn down and defenseless, so lost in someone else, so susceptible. But then she looked up at Castiel, their eyes locked—and she saw the way he looked at her with a breathlessness, with deeply abiding desire and affection and _need_—and she realized she didn't need to be afraid; in fact, that she _wasn't_ afraid. She wanted it if it was with _him_. In fact, she _needed _it—she needed to be close to him, to be possessed by him completely.

Holding still in shock, Cas stared at her, afraid to move at all, unsure what to do, what was happening. All he could do was stare at her—and he saw deep trust and desire there in the hazel depths that stared back at him. He could feel her trembling a little, she seemed to be anticipating something—and realization washed over him—_am I supposed to…? Does she want me to…?_

Alex's grip tightened at the back of his neck—he was looking at her with wide eyes. _Castiel, please, please, I need you_—is all she could think, but she didn't move at all, afraid to break the moment, afraid to ruin everything, afraid he was suddenly going to stop and leave her empty, aching. Her hands, tightly holding the back of his neck, pulled his head and neck forward slightly—she despaired for him, she wanted to beg and plead him_ take me now_.

Castiel felt his drunken state retreating like a wave receding into the ocean as he realized what was happening, what he was doing, what he could do with a single push—he was no expert on human copulation but he knew what it was, what it looked like—and that if he didn't step away, he was about to participate in it. Still—he didn't move. Not away, not further in. He felt her pulling on his neck, her eyes beckoned him, her entire body was tense and waiting.

"I need you," she whispered pleadingly. She sounded broken and desperate and he felt her legs tighten around him, he felt the warm sheath of her press against him and he breathed in sharply, looked at her in the eye, his whole body begging him to do this—screaming at him that _he needed her, too_. And there seemed no reason left in the universe for him to say no or to stop it. Especially not when she let out a shaky breath, begged him, "_please_."

That single word was an epiphany. Castiel realized that he didn't care. Not about God, not about the laws of Heaven. Not about the future, not about the past, not about anything or anyone but her and this urgent, desperate moment between the two of them. _Nothing mattered_ except the girl he held in his arms who waited for him, who was begging him for this. She was the pinnacle of his existence, the center of everything. He desired her so completely and unrelentingly, in _every way_ he could fathom, and he could no longer resist, he could no longer deny his conviction that they _belonged_.

His mouth closed, he swallowed—his breathing quickened. And it happened before either of them could take it back or second guess it or even completely recognize what was happening. He gripped her tighter and her fingers dug into him, her entire body bracing itself, overwhelmed by anticipation and adrenaline, stunned desire, disbelief—and shaking, finding breath impossible, Castiel pushed himself into her, filling her to the absolute brim.

Two things happened at almost the exact same time, in such rapid succession that it was almost impossible to separate them. Almost.

First: Castiel was unable to hold back a stunned, primal sound at the indescribable and devastatingly overwhelming feeling of being completely enveloped in secure warmth, being _part _of her—his nerve endings, his entire body seemed to short circuit, the intensity was baffling and jaw-dropping, he had never experienced such complete and utterly visceral, physical pleasure before, his mind could barely even comprehend it, that such a feeling were possible—

Second: Alex let out a terrible, shocked, pain-filled sound, completely jarring Cas. Stunned and afraid, he froze, looked at her in horror. Her face was filled with pain, her fingers dug into him like a vice, her breathing was labored and pained… and panicking, Castiel stared at her, feeling a rush of realization and horror.

"I'm hurting you—" he managed in alarm, and did the only thing he could think to do, began to retreat, but her face wrinkled up even more, teeth gritted, and another sharp sound of pain broke free from her and doubly horrified, Castiel froze again—distraught. What was he supposed to do? All the previous good feelings he'd felt were gone, replaced with absolute terror.

The sensation was so much more painful than Alex thought it would be—like being torn in half almost, and she clung to him tightly, so surprised—she just tried to focus on breathing steadily, then glanced up at Cas in pain, who looked like he'd been gutted. "What should I… what should I do?" he asked, and he sounded so panicked, so alarmed—and even though she couldn't really think because of the pain, Alex hurriedly reassured him. "No, ah, no, I'm… I'm okay," she said, but she didn't sound okay, even to herself. She sounded pained, shocked, wounded.

"No, you're not," he protested in an increasingly distressed tone, because he was causing her agony and he hadn't meant to and the worst part was that it had_ felt good to him_—her hand came to the side of his face and his thoughts trailed off. She looked at him with a tense, pleading expression. "Just… just kiss me for awhile?" she asked.

Castiel looked as if the suggestion were the furthest thing from what he expected her to say, but he didn't seem to have any regard for his own opinion, because after a second of hesitation and confusion, he did what she asked… gingerly leaned in and kissed her with heartbreaking tenderness, guilt seasoning the way his lips touched hers. Her hand tightened a little on his face—and one of his hands mirrored hers, gently cupping the side of her face. His thumb moved against her cheek gently and the pain, the tearing feeling… it faded away a little because she thought that Castiel… was _inside of her_, he was filling her, he was as close as he could ever get and _she loved him_. A sob escaped her as she thought that last part, she wrapped her arms around his neck, both of her hands tangling in his hair as she kissed him a little more intensely now, not sure how much longer she could hold still, because her entire body and being was aching to continue.

And even though it still hurt like a bitch, she couldn't stay still anymore, she _couldn't_—and breaking the kiss, breathing heavily and resting her forehead against his, she moved experimentally, cringing—it was barely an inch that she moved, pulling her hips away, then moving them back—but it was incredibly painful and she shuddered, unable to keep another heavy, shocked groan silent. And Castiel almost looked as if he could cry, his expression was so devastated. "Alex, please, _stop_, I can't—" he begged her, in agony. Alex cut him off with a soft '_shh_' sound, unable to see him so upset—both of her hands were on his face now, thumbs brushing across his cheeks soothingly, and she tried to get him to look at her. He looked into her eyes helplessly, distraught and afraid, unsure. She hesitated, then pressed her lips to his gently, slowly, trying to show him that she was all right, that she wanted this and him, even if it hurt. And when she drew back, he said her name softly, pleadingly, so quietly—and there with him in the Vatican library, against the bookshelf in the middle of the night, Alex knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Castiel _loved her_. Tears were in her eyes. Not tears of pain. Her arms tightened around his shoulders, she buried her face in the side of his neck, felt overwhelmed with emotions, pain, ecstasy all at once. She waited maybe ten seconds, trembling in his arms, listening to his unsteady breathing.

Despite the physical discomfort, she moved again, this time moving a lot more and she felt him shudder when she did, he let out a soft, stuttering breath and she pulled her head up, looked at him—his eyes were glazed over—and as soon as she stopped moving, he looked at her like he felt guilty for the obvious pleasure he'd felt—and she didn't like that, so she gritted her teeth and decided pain be damned. She moved again, boldly, a_ lot_, and they both gasped, she literally groaned out his name, floored by the feeling, the _pressure_, the knowledge of what they were doing together, the feeling of him filling her so completely. The pain couldn't compare to the absolutely astounding pleasure that came over her that time, and Alex felt like she could pass out completely. Him, here, inside of her, was holy and sacred and _everything_ to her—this angel had saved her, had restored her, had given everything for her—and now his body was inside of hers, they were joined in a way she didn't imagine possible, and overwhelmed, she said his name softly—and it sounded like a prayer, like a plea, like worship—she was completely dependent on him in this moment, she felt like she belonged entirely to him, she wondered if two people had ever loved each other more than this. She wanted him forever and ever, until the end of everything.

Castiel held onto Alex tightly, realized that when she moaned his name that the word had the distinct, growing lilt of pleasure, desire—and then she moved over him again, and his vision went black for a second, and then bright, like stars were exploding in front of him. He heard himself make a deep, urgent sound, and guilt consumed him that he felt so much pleasure doing something that caused her pain in any way. His eyes whipped up to hers and he couldn't bear it if this were still hurting her, he wanted to stop altogether even though his body screamed at him to keep going. She was looking back at him with heavy-lidded eyes, her mouth parted open—and he was overcome. She was the most precious and valuable thing on Heaven or Earth or any place in between. She was everything.

"Cas,_ please_," she begged softly, gripping him tightly, trembling, waiting for him to move, too. And he didn't know how to tell her no. Clumsily, one hand bracing her hip, the other around her waist—completely horrified to do this wrong, to make her hurt again—with utmost care and dread, he moved out a little, back in again—and he was unable to stifle his reaction; he felt like he could collapse, like he could shatter, he heard a deep moan in the bottom of his throat—and when she made another soft gasping sound, he felt a surge of deeply instinctual desire. Her expression was still rigid, but not with pain as so much with expectancy and some kind of expectant, primal tension. She was breathing loudly, he was too, and he did it again, moved himself out, then back in. He felt her fingers digging into his shoulders.

He hesitated still to move much more, he was afraid—the sensation of literally being _inside of her _was intense enough, but his body reeled with recognition of how petite she was, everywhere, how large he was. He was afraid he was that he might overwhelm her, break her somehow. But there was a pleading tone to her gasps and pants, he knew she needed something from him, and he tried to give it, moving inside of her unsteadily, trying to do what she wanted. Feeling so very unsure of himself, unable to look at her, just confused and filled with a stark fear that he would ruin her or break her; and he was guilty because it felt _so good_ to him, he was worried because he didn't know _how to do this_, he was panicking because she trusted him and he was hurting her, he was—the thought was interrupted when she grabbed him by the side of the head, by his hair, made him look her in the eyes—and all of his chaotic, horrified feelings subsided, he suddenly forgot it all.

She was looking at him with eyes that held complete adoration, need, desire—and he didn't understand how she could feel those things toward him. But he was rendered awed by it, how sacred this moment was, how much it must mean to her, how much it meant to him, how astounding it was that she would allow him to do this with her… and he groaned softly, kissed her, stopped thinking—just allowed instinct to take over—melted into her as the vessel, his body, seemed to remember what to do… and her arms wrapped around him tightly as praised her mouth with a kiss from his, one of his hands coming to grip the back of her head gently. And he began to move in her again, but this time, it was different—he was sure, he knew what to do, he didn't think about it, he just _did_. He gave everything he had to her. And her head fell back, a relieved, amazed sound escaping her open mouth, and Cas drew back, watching her now, unable to look away—she was the most beautiful sight he had ever witnessed. The air around them filled with the sound of their ragged breaths—they clung to each other desperately, both shocked, both overwhelmed and amazed, overtaken by the other, as the rhythm they found became more intense.

The sounds she was making were becoming higher and more and more strained, she sobbed, she grabbed his face and then his neck in both hands, beginning to sound frantic, desperate for something, and he was too, for the same thing, but he didn't know what it was—his breaths were now coming sharp and shallow, he could barely concentrate, barely hold himself together, so enraptured with the way it felt to be with her like this.

There was an alien pressure and pleasure building in his body, rising up in him—it was the most intense physical sensation he had ever felt, and it overpowered him, began to scare him—it felt like there should be a limit but he _couldn't find it _and he heard himself making pathetic, unsure sounds that rose in pitch because he was beginning to feel lost, like he would never find it, but he needed to, and he clung to her tighter and tighter, and he felt like his mind was slipping away, he couldn't control his breathing or his vocal chords, all he could do was lose himself in her, despairing for something he couldn't name.

Under the spell of what he was doing to her, Alex was writhing, tortured and yet in complete bliss, every cell in her body reaching for completion and apex, needing him so much, and she was left not even understanding _what_ she was feeling, just completely wrapped up in him, in every earth-shattering sensation he was bestowing upon her. The pain was still there but so far faded into the background of her mind, so overshadowed by the raging pleasure that she almost forgot about it entirely. Cas was groaning, panting, grunting with increasing intensity and volume, his hands grasping her tightly, like she were the only thing he could hold onto to keep from blowing away. She heard how afraid he was, how scared, and she thought how he never would have felt anything like this before, how he might not know what was happening to him—and she loved him even more for it. With her eyes squeezed shut, she buried her face in the side of his neck, she held him tighter, one hand gripping his shoulder, the other clenched at the back of his head—trying to hold onto him, steady him, make sure that he knew that she was there with him in this.

Cas suddenly shuddered in her arms, cried out with intense surprise, pitched forward into her arms, his groans no longer groans but choking gasps and realizing what was happening to him, Alex broke too, shattered completely, came undone—and she was hanging onto him for her life itself, crying out loudly as the orgasm devastated and rebuilt her all at the same time—she could have sworn she heard glass breaking as she convulsed violently in his arms, completely wrecked and made whole at the same time, and he held onto her tightly, not letting them part for even a minute. She realized dimly that broken glass rained down over them from above and she didn't know why, she only knew that she felt Castiel leaning over her even as he came, his arms surrounding her, enveloping her body with his, sheltering her protectively even as he quaked against and inside of her—and Alex wouldn't have cared if the world itself was ending, all she could do was cling to him, sobbing from the intensity as they reached infinity together, as they discovered perfection. All she could do was surrender to him—he was light, he was power, he was ancient days and formless shape, he was creation and destruction, he was like taking in the entire universe in one single breath. And in that sacred, devastating, astounding moment, every part of her body and soul was alive and free and with him.

Thrown headlong into the brilliant blazing sun, Castiel was no longer just cells and atoms and consciousness—he understood eternity, he felt the rushing rivers and the stormy tide of the ocean and the crash of every typhoon break over him. He was left amazed, confounded, overcome, _forever_—and breathless, in wonder, they were clinging to each other, gone still as the room became quiet again. At their feet, shattered stained glass littered the floor.

Castiel was trembling, _trembling _in Alex's arms, reeling from what had just happened, from the storm they had stirred in each other, from the feeling of being taken over the edge, of being dashed over rocks and of being sent flying headlong into a supernova—he knew that he would never be the same, he felt like he had tasted the finest wine, that all other things would always pale in comparison to this, to _her_, to what they had found together, what they had created. He drew back just enough to look at her again, at the same time that she lifted her head off his shoulder. Her eyes raised to his. She was flushed, shaking, breathless, beautiful, _his_. This fragile, breakable, mortal human being. And overcome with tenderness, with so many thoughts and emotions, Cas's hand reached up to touch her face. With all the gentleness and affection that Castiel felt for her, he leaned closer helplessly, his nose brushing hers, his lips gently pressing to hers in a simple, chaste kiss. He felt her returning the gesture, felt her hand against his face now too, her thumb grazing over his jawline.

And all he could think was that he _loved her_. For every and any reason, he loved her.

Beyond measure. Beyond compare. Beyond anything.

And then he thought about that. Beyond _anything_.

More than he had ever loved God. Or Heaven.

He pulled away from the kiss, the elation fading—she looked at him, breathing raggedly, her gaze questioning—because she could see his face changing. It was because he was suddenly overcome by sobriety, by the sinking-in realization of what had just happened, what they had just done. She looked so wrong to him all of the sudden or maybe he felt wrong, all he knew was that she seemed smaller than he remembered—and he thought of himself, a formless vapor that had existed in Grace and the void for thousands of years, a towering angelic being who knew no limits or death. The centuries he had witnessed passed before his eyes. The reality of who he was crashed over him. An angel almost as old as time itself.

And then the reality of who _she_ was sank in: twenty-seven years old, a _child_ in comparison to himself—she was the one he was supposed to protect at all costs, shelter from anything or anyone who would seek to hurt her or take advantage of her.

So when Cas realized with dawning horror that he'd just _taken her virginity_, that he'd initiated it and done it while half-drunk, against a wretched bookcase, with a body that didn't even belong to him—he was suddenly terrified, looking at his beloved Alex—who was innocent and pure—who he'd made scream in pain, who he loved but _shouldn't_, who he was supposed to always guard and protect—and all the good things he'd felt were gone, and instead all he could think was that he had _defiled_ her.

_What had he done?_

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ OH MY GOD I will never be okay ever again hahahaahahaaah *crazed laughter then wretched sobbing* _

_But okay in all seriousness… that was the first sex scene I have ever written and published. I put my heart and soul into it. And I'm pretty proud of it. Also overwhelmed because these characters frigging write themselves and ugh, they are so BEAUTIFUL and in love! I am so curious to hear feedback about how surprised you were/weren't that this happened. Did you expect it? Also FYI, yes, Cas shattered the glass under the influence of his orgasm :D eeeheheeheh *is very mature*_

_I apologize that this chapter is so long—just because I know how it can be overwhelming to process SO MANY FEELS and like Cas drunk texting and Alex being a badass hunter and then OMG THE MOST LOVING SEX AGAINST A BOOKSHELF HELP MEEEEE_


	32. Deadly Sins

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 32 / Deadly Sins

"_Some things are just inevitable.__"  
_- Unknown

* * *

It was like coming back down to earth from paradise itself.

The fever pitch of perfection and ecstasy was fading away now, and in its place there was an overpowering sense of wonder. Left breathless and dazed by a dumbfounded kind of amazement, Alex was flushed all over in dizzying heat, she was left to reel in every way possible in the aftermath of what had just happened between herself and Castiel. She was so very aware of the all-powerful angel who was trembling in her embrace. _Trembling_. Her arms tightened around him just a little bit.

Only able to focus on one thing at a time, Alex's mind struggled to regain the ability to think clearly. She was aware that Cas's strong arms were holding her up, felt the fabric of his trench coat against her bare legs which still hugged around his middle. The two of them were pressed against each other so closely that she couldn't tell which thundering heartbeat was which—only that she felt two. His rapid breaths hit the curve of her shoulder and the side of her neck in little puffs of hot air. His warm forehead gently leaned against her temple, his hair tickling her forehead. But none of that really compared to the feeling of him still inside of her. The sweet, torturous pressure still remained, filling her to a point that didn't seem possible. She shut her eyes, let out a trembling breath. _Was this real?_

She turned her head toward him slightly, and opened her eyes slowly, his head moved back a little, and their eyes locked. And that's when she knew it was real. All of it. His expression was so unlike any expression she'd ever seen on his or _any_ face ever before. He was looking at her like he was content, satisfied, wanting for nothing. Like he loved her, adored her even. Surreal and overwhelming emotions tumbled over Alex as he touched her face gently, his grazing fingertips leaving a hushed tingle across her skin. Cas leaned in, his nose brushing against her nose as he brought his lips to hers, kissing her with slow and simple sweetness. Helpless and in love, she touched the side of his face, too, returning the kiss. And for a moment, as they shared that gentle, quiet kiss, everything was right—the troubles of the world were still there of course, but right now Alex didn't feel anything but complete, safe, wanted, adored. She was with the one she loved. Everything was okay.

And then it all went away.

With startling abruptness, Cas pulled away from the kiss, and the second he did, Alex could tell something was wrong, something had changed. Her stomach dropped when she saw how his expression had become clouded and troubled... where there had been euphoria and amazement a moment ago, now there was dawning horror and panic. She suddenly began to feel those things, too—_what was wrong_? He looked down and around, as if he were coming out of a fog, like he was realizing what he was doing, what they had done... and then he moved, began to pull out of her. Without warning, in the place of the echoes of pleasure, there was a tearing pain again and Alex's eyes screwed shut, her teeth bared together, she tried to stifle a knee-jerk sound of pain. But she couldn't, not quite.

Cas froze for a second at the sound she made, looked at her, terrified—then he braced himself and pulled out completely, looking sickened. And Alex was suddenly empty and blindsided, standing on two shaky legs, feeling discomfort and stark confusion. Cas had taken a couple stumbling steps back, turned away from her completely. Suddenly cold and feeling his absence in every part of herself, Alex looked at his back in silent, baffled shock. What had she done—what happened? Why did he suddenly react like that? She heard his zipper go up, then his belt buckle clinking. And in a strange state of dazed confusion, she looked down at the ground, saw broken stained glass littering the polished floors. Saw her discarded white underwear beside her foot. In a daze of autonomy, Alex stooped and picked up her panties off the floor—as she straightened, a series of horrible thoughts slammed into her like a solid brick wall.

_She_ was the one who had moved his hand to touch her how she'd wanted to be touched. _She_ was the one who had unzipped his pants, had touched him, had pulled his boxers down—then practically pleaded with him to take her. "Please, _stop_," he'd begged her when he'd first been inside of her—and she'd thought it was because he didn't want to hurt her but maybe—_oh my God,_ maybe it was because he _hadn't wanted it_. Maybe he'd just done that with her because he had known _she_ wanted it, or maybe he'd been so drunk he literally hadn't known what he was doing, maybe it was just his vessel and not him at all, maybe she had misinterpreted everything—_but why would—and did he really not—had she gotten it wrong and made the biggest mistake of her life?—how could she have let this happen?—she hadn't meant_—

Alex was having a hard time breathing now, she felt lightheaded and queasy, her thoughts were half-finished and frantic. All she could think was _had she forced him somehow_? Taken advantage of him and his drunken state? Had she wanted it so badly that she hadn't cared to really find out if he wanted it too or not? He had seemed fine until that last kiss, _why_? Her heart sank. She had violated him somehow, hadn't she? He wouldn't act like this, otherwise. She was thunderstruck, confused, remembering how eager he'd seemed, how willing and even impassioned. How could she have_ imagined _that? Even as she wondered that, Castiel turned halfway, looked back at her over his shoulder.

His expression was unreadable; she couldn't tell what he was thinking—only that she had caused the pained look there in his eyes. Her heart sank even further, her horror increased. She wanted to disappear. His eyes flickered to her hand—she followed his gaze—she had clenched her underwear so tightly that her knuckles almost matched the white fabric. Cas's jaw worked strangely and he looked away pointedly, giving her a chance to put her underwear back on. Her shoes crunched on the broken glass under her feet as she did, and she was completely and totally mortified—she hugged her arms around herself when she was done. Swallowing thickly, feeling wretched and low, she tried to look at him but was only halfway able to. "A-are you all right?" she asked fearfully. Her voice wavered badly, there was no strength to it.

His eyes met hers just barely. "I should be asking you that," he said. He sounded weary and sickened, disgusted. He couldn't seem to look at her now, his despair deepened. "I-I shouldn't have done that," he said miserably, his brows tense and knit together. He had never looked so guilty or torn.

"Why?" she asked, filled with dread. Her stomach was nauseated beyond belief, she almost felt like she could be sick. Any answer he could make would devastate her. Well, devastate her further. But maybe she hoped he would answer her in a way that could dispel the horrible suspicions coursing through her.

His answer did nothing but make everything worse. "It was wrong." His words were startling and stinging, like a slap to the face, and he still wouldn't look at her. It was like the air had been ripped from Alex's lungs. She had felt fulfilled and loved and complete a minute ago—and was now left with a crumbling world. It was _wrong_?

How could that have been wrong? Did he really believe that? She couldn't let herself believe that, and chancing everything, putting everything on the line, Alex went closer to him. "_Cas_—" she appealed, and hesitated, then tried to touch his face, get him to look at her—but he turned his face away from her hand and she froze. His gaze was still on the floor, he was purposefully not looking at her.

She stood there stupidly, unable to reconcile the passion and love she'd felt from him with this cold and unwilling Castiel before her now. Had she imagined that love she'd felt from him? Had she gotten it all wrong? With increasingly ill feelings, she again remembered how he had begged her to stop at first and she hadn't listened. Horrified, she asked herself _what have you done_? Everything inside of her protested, tried to understand, tried to convince herself that she'd done nothing wrong. She loved Castiel—_loved_ him—didn't ever want to hurt him or mistreat him in any way… but the reality stared her down the barrel: she had wronged him anyway. She'd taken his virginity while he was drunk and out of his mind. She'd used him for what she'd wanted, had ignored his protests, thinking she knew what he wanted better than he did—and the realization that _that wasn't love _washed over her. If she really loved him she would have listened to him, honored his desires.

_Stupid, childish, naive_. She wanted to die, she suddenly hated everything about herself and she turned around, hiding her face from him, fighting the urge to break down and cry. There was a long silence and then she heard him draw a book off the shelf.

"This is the book we came here for," his deep voice said, and he sounded distracted, weary. Barely able to hold herself together at this point, Alex shook her head, fighting to keep her composure. Trying not to lose it completely. "Just... just take us back to the motel," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. Turned to look at him a little, trying to find a glimpse of the Castiel who she thought wanted her.

Their eyes met for an instant. Then suddenly, they were not there anymore—and Alex realized that for the first time, he took her through the fabric of space and time without touching her. And that realization was another blow, another devastation.

Her feet were now on cheap carpet—they were back in the motel again—it was dim, smelled faintly like cigarettes and disinfectant. Alex almost jumped out of her skin when she heard Sam behind her. "Did you guys find the book?" he asked, and Alex turned around to see her twin getting up from the little couch, an open book on the coffee table in front of where he'd been sitting. The second Sam saw his twin's face, it was clear he could see something was wrong—he stopped and frowned, glanced at Cas, looked back at her. His eyes were narrowing in attentive concern. "Something wrong?" he asked, directing the question to his sister who just looked away from him, her jaw tight.

Sam's piercing stare went back to Cas, who was looking down at the book in his hands. Sam's frown was deepening, his eyes narrowed even more when he looked back at Alex, his tone taking on a suspicious note. "What… what took you guys so long?" he asked.

Alex exploded. "_Jesus Christ_, Sam!" she exclaimed, "There were a shitload of books, okay?! Like you could have found it any fucking faster!" The words flew out of her mouth and left a stunned silence in the room. Shocked at herself, feeling herself rapidly dissolving, Alex had to flee. Without grabbing a jacket or looking at either man, she shook her head, holding back tears, and charged out of the motel room wordlessly, leaving a very confused Sam behind and a very shocked Castiel.

Sam looked at the door, eyes wide, eyebrows raised high—he was blindsided by Alex's strange behavior. "Cas, what—" he started out, then went silent, turning back around to see an empty room. The book was sitting on the table, Cas was gone.

* * *

It was freezing outside, she was in the highly impractical sleeveless, above-knee dress—but she didn't care. She just had to keep moving. She stumbled sort of blindly through the parking lot and toward the road, vision made blurry with tears. She couldn't stop herself, she just needed to _get away_. From him, from what had happened. From the pain, from herself, from everything. She was sobbing loudly, miserably, distraught when she thought of all the ruin and wreckage in her life, all the mistakes she'd made. She ran into something solid, felt herself being stopped mid-step—was temporarily shocked into silence and stillness as she looked up and into the face of Castiel, who looked down at her with a face full of pained concern. He was the one she'd been running from, and coming face to face with him was too much.

She crumbled, and it was a good thing he'd gripped her just above each elbow. She felt almost like she could collapse, her emotions were so heavy and all-consuming. "I'm so sorry, Cas, I'm _so_ sorry," she sobbed out, and covered her face with both hands, bowing her head, wanting to escape the impossible guilt. "I t-thought you, that you wanted it, I thought that we were—that you wanted—" she looked up at him through tear-filled eyes, did the only thing she could think to do with her hands, and that was grab onto his arms as he continued to hold hers. "I'm _sorry_," she blubbered. "Please, _please_, forgive me, I thought you really wanted it, I d-didn't think about how drunk you were because I was drunk too and I, I wanted you, I wasn't thinking clearly," she stumbled out excuse after excuse as he stared at her with a strange, confused expression. "I used you to get what I wanted," she rambled blindly, getting more and more hysterical by the second, "I didn't think of how it would affect you or how it's not a natural thing for you to do or what it might do to you or—"

"Alex! _Stop_." He had tilted his face down, trying to peer into hers, and his features were distorted by a horrified expression. "You think _you're _the one in the wrong here?"

She was so startled by his question that she couldn't even reply for a second. "A-aren't I?" she asked, taken aback. He seemed equally taken aback when she asked that, and then almost offended. "How _could _you be?" he asked, implying with his voice and expression that he didn't even acknowledge that as a possibility.

Alex blinked a couple times, getting even more confused than before. She was racking her brain, trying to figure out what was going on, what Cas was getting at. "I thought… I was the one who made the whole thing happen…" she stated with wavering conviction, bringing her hands to each opposite elbow, hugging herself a little.

He looked like hearing her say that brought him pain. "That's... not how I remember it," he said regretfully. His eyes wandered the space of her tearstained cheeks and his hand raised, he used the backs of his index and middle fingers to wipe away the tears. His eyes followed his fingers, and her gaze stayed on him, her confusion not lessening at all, but a small wave of comfort washing over her at his gentle touch. His gaze flickered to hers guiltily, and his hand froze, withdrew, as if he was realizing what he was doing.

He looked down, shut his eyes for a beat, let out a heavy breath through his nose. His arms hung at his sides now. He was silent for a moment, and Alex was breathless and confused, hoping, teetering on the edge of absolute heartbreak. He finally spoke, in a low, quiet voice, his eyes hesitant to meet hers. "Alex… I _did_ want it." The admission made her heart jump and stomach roll, even though he sounded conflicted when he continued. "I just… I _shouldn't _have."

She didn't understand. "Shouldn't have _wanted_ it or shouldn't have _done_ it?" she asked, heart hammering in desperate hope at hearing that he _had_ wanted it. Cas looked burdened, every muscle in his face tense with grief. "Alex… I am… thousands and_ thousands_ of years old." And that reminder of fact suddenly smothered the hope she'd felt. She was forced to remember that the man in the trench coat, the man she'd fallen in love with... wasn't a man. That they weren't supposed to love each other, that he wasn't even the same species as her. His eyes were heavy with the weight of countless centuries, and she felt how impossible this was, heard his message loud and clear: even though he _had_ wanted it, even though it _had _happened… it shouldn't have. "I'm not a _human_, Alex," he continued, looking at her, his eyes pleading with her to understand.

All she could do was nod and look down, attempt a smile to cover her true emotions, try to keep the brokenhearted tears from coming. Say in a weary, spent voice: "I know, Cas. I know."

He shook his head, his agonized expression mirrored hers almost exactly. "This isn't even my body," he said, each word driving a stake of pain further into her heart. But then he said something she hadn't expected. "I had no right… to do that." His voice caught oddly. "To take… take that from you." He swallowed, a muscle tensed in his cheek. "And it hurt you. _I_ hurt you."

Alex looked at him, stunned, realizing his distress went a lot deeper than she'd thought. And suddenly, she could see light at the end of the tunnel again, saw a million-to-one chance that maybe they could get past this. "You're upset because I was… because it was my first time?"

He looked guilty and upset. "It shouldn't have been with me."

His statement shocked her, offended her almost. "I _wanted_ it to be," she told him pleadingly, feeling absolutely defenseless. He looked down and away, his face a mask of misery. Alex bravely sought his gaze, craning her neck a little, trying to get him to look at her, trying to make sure he knew he was _wrong_. "Cas… you didn't _take_ anything." She briefly thought, in the back of her mind, that she was insane for continuing to pursue this and him. But she did anyway. Maybe startling them both, she reached down, took hold of one of his hands gently. He looked down at her hand in his. "I _gave_ it to you," she told him quietly. His eyes jumped up to hers, and the amount of emotion on his face was overwhelming. Even though he'd seemed so old a moment ago, he now looked unsure, young and inexperienced, like a teenage boy. And she remembered again how tonight had not only been the night she'd lost her virginity. He'd lost his, too. And the very thought of that left her speechless for a minute—she was suddenly feeling shy and girlish as she remembered him, intimately. She couldn't believe it had actually happened, but knew it had. There was an ache where he'd been, a stretched feeling. Her body still felt warm with the afterglow. _Wow_. All she could think was _wow_.

"I mean, remember," she said softly, trying to sound lighter than she felt, trying to make him feel better, trying to fill the suddenly-awkward feeling silence. "It… it was your first time too, right?" His expression changed a little, softened. It was a rhetorical question that she'd asked, but he answered her anyway. "Yes." She felt his hand tighten around hers, just a little, and the reality of it hit her anew: she'd been with an _angel_. They had lost their virginities to each other.

Her body tingled with a rush of memories: his breath in her ear, his hands wandering her body… and every touch and sound and sensation had rendered her into mindless putty, had driven her to shamelessly beg him for everything he had to give. And the term 'making love' came to mind—even though she'd always laughed at it before—nothing else seemed to fit. She thought of how, for a moment, they had been together in every way possible. For a moment, he'd been hers completely. For a moment Heaven and Earth and all the reasons they _weren't supposed to_ had just melted away. She was flustered, recalling how he'd been beyond passionate with her—tender and careful and giving, like all he'd cared about was giving her what she had needed and wanted.

Alex was suddenly feeling overwhelmed, unsure what an angel could see in _her _worth loving or worth wanting to please. A minute ago he'd said that her first time shouldn't have been with him, but she suddenly wondered why _he _had wanted that with _her_. How was she worthy of this? Of him? What did he see in her? She was a weird and broken little human with a million issues and no functioning understanding of the real world. She had maybe ten dollars to her name and a biography that would give most people in their right mind a stroke. She had nothing to offer him except herself. And she didn't know why he'd want that. But even though she didn't know why he saw anything in her, she still knew he did. You could tear it all down, the universe, the laws of nature, entire civilizations, whatever: take it all away but she knew Castiel would always care about her. She just didn't know _why_.

"What is it?" Cas asked her, his eyes narrowing in concern, and Alex looked away, at the empty road and dark sidewalk; wanting to hide from him and also burrow into him all at once. Her emotions were going haywire and she was suddenly so very tired. "I just… where do we go from here?" she asked brokenly, looking back at him with eyes that pleaded him for an answer, a clear solution. A cut and dry answer that would take away all the unknowns and misunderstandings. But Castiel looked at her openly, a helpless kind of sadness on his face. He looked as confused as she did. "I don't know."

Watching from about thirty feet away, Sam hung back in front of the motel door—he'd grabbed his jacket and made to follow after his clearly upset sister, then stopped when he'd seen that Castiel had met her in the middle of the deserted road. Sam had stopped, unsure if he should remain back or go to them and demand an explanation. He'd settled on staying back, but he watched them closely. Alex was upset and Sam could tell that something had happened—maybe she and Cas had argued or something at the Vatican. It didn't matter—whatever had happened to upset her, Sam wasn't going anywhere until he made sure that his sister was okay. He wasn't used to her going all Dean on him like she had a minute ago.

So he stood there, waiting, not really even sure what he was witnessing—he couldn't hear them at all, but he could see that Alex had calmed down. The two of them had been speaking intently for the past couple minutes, appearing to be anxious or emotional about something. They were currently staring at each other silently… and then, what little space had been between them disappeared. Surprised, Sam wasn't sure who initiated the embrace—only saw Alex bury her head in Cas's shoulder, saw Cas wrap his arms around Alex protectively, securely. And Sam was even more shocked to see that than what he'd seen when the two of them had been making out under Famine's influence. There was an enormous amount of visible trust and an intensity, an intimacy that he saw in the embrace. Sam felt his eyebrows raise up high.

Cas was an awkward guy, or at least, that's what Sam had thought before. But right now, it was very, very obvious to Sam that he'd underestimated the angel. Cas held Alex tenderly, in the way that a man held a woman he loved—and Sam could see how much the angel thought of his sister: it was in the gentle way that his hand cradled Alex's head, in the tilt of Cas's head toward Alex's. Sam stared openly, unsure about witnessing this.

And that's when the sharp sound of a gunshot cracked the air in two. Sam's heart leapt into his throat, he saw Alex jump and for a second he thought _my God she's been shot_—and he was shouting her name and running—getting to Alex and Cas, who both looked confused—and still held each other tightly, looking up at Sam in surprise and confusion.

"Are you all right?" Sam demanded frantically grabbing his sister by the shoulders, assessing her and glancing at Cas, too—"Fine, I'm fine," she said, looking around, alarmed. "Where did that come from?"

Cas, who was stern and frowning now, looked at the bar. "It came from there," he said, nodding toward the little building that was plunked beside the motel. As soon as he said it, Sam was heading that way, and he didn't even know if they were following, all he could think was Dean… oh my God, _Dean_. He just _knew_ his brother was either getting shot at or doing the shooting.

The tendency to not think things entirely through was one of Sam's weaknesses when he thought one of his siblings might be hurt or in danger. Such was today. Sam reached the door to the bar and practically knocked it down as he slammed it open and barged inside, then froze at the scene that waited inside. Paul was shot and crumpled on the floor against the bar, wasn't moving. Jane held a pistol on him, her hands shaking badly. "Just give me the gun, Jane," the pastor was coaxing, standing between her and Paul's body.

"I had to do it, David," Jane said. She didn't sound remorseful. She sounded dangerous.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Sam asked cautiously, his steam fading as he laid eyes on Dean, who crouched beside Paul, putting pressure on the gunshot wound, but it looked like it was too late. Paul was still and unresponsive.

"He was_ compromising _the flock. He deserved to die." Jane spat contemptuously, gun still aimed in Dean and Pastor Gideon's direction. "He was a _sinner_."

Sam's eyebrows raised at the audacity the woman spoke with and he opened his mouth to reply—and then heard the angry voice of his twin behind himself. "Isn't _murder _a sin?" she snapped angrily, clearly not thinking, and before Sam could react at all, Jane's head swiveled sharply to stare Alex down, there was a snarl on the red-haired woman's face. "_You,_"she spat, "have no right to say that to me. You and your brothers got my son _killed_."

It all happened so fast. Jane suddenly seemed to snap completely, was swinging her arm around to bring the to aim right at Alex—and Sam couldn't move fast enough, it literally happened in one, maybe two seconds: Cas suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of Alex and the sound of another shot rang out loudly even as everyone in the entire establishment jumped in shock—maybe from the loud sound, or maybe from the shock of seeing a man appear out of thin air. Jane lowered the gun, stunned. "How—" she started, but was cut off when Sam tackled her, sending the gun flying through the air. "Hey, hey!" Rob was shouting, and Dean stood up, pointed a finger at Castiel and then Alex, barely looking at either of them in the rising chaos. "Cas, get her outta here, _now_!"

* * *

Alex opened her mouth to protest, but it was too late. She and Cas were already back in the motel room—Cas had moved them without touching her again, his back was to her, and he reached out a hand, steadied himself against the room partition. And Alex went still, looking at him with a frown. Why was he having a problem standing again? "What's wrong?" she asked, and then he turned around slowly. He was frowning slightly, looking down at his chest in confusion. A perfect circle, just a little smaller than a penny had been punched through the trench coat, right above his heart—and bright red blood blossomed out onto the beige fabric.

Her breath caught, her chest twisted, her stomach dropped, her entire nervous system seemed to suddenly be on fire with alarm. "Oh my God—_Cas_!" Alex gasped out, rushing across the short space between them, grabbing ahold of him, looking at the bullet hole and then his face in complete shock. "You're _shot_!"

"I'm... fine," he said, but he sounded unsure, and his expression was strange, slightly pained.

"_Fine_?" She repeated, aghast. He looked a little woozy, he blinked oddly, twice, and she realized she needed to pull it together for his sake. "Okay, just…" Alex tried to think clearly, tried to calm herself down. Castiel was shot, but he was an angel, he would be fine, right? Maybe not though, he wasn't as invincible as he'd been once, he was cut off from Heaven, he'd lost many of his abilities—shit, _shit_!_ Just keep your head, _she commanded herself_. Treat the wound, figure out how bad it is_. She breathlessly told him "sit down, sit down," as she maneuvered him over to a bed, sat him down, stared at the blood seeping out onto the trench coat. Appalled at the sight, automatically doing the only thing she knew to do, which was to put pressure on the wound, she looked at him in alarm. "What were you_ thinking_?"

He looked up at her without hesitation, frowning slightly. "That I was saving your life."

She was taken aback by him, stilled by his sincerity, by the way he had answered her so simply. By the realization that he _had_ saved her life. By the fact that he had taken a freaking bullet for her. He'd laid himself on the line for her, he'd protected her. And if she hadn't loved him before, she sure as hell did now. And she felt warm blood underneath the palm of her hand where she shakily applied pressure. Her nauseating worry increased. "But now you're…"

"Fine," he repeated. She looked at him like he was crazy, wondering how someone with a bleeding chest wound, angel or not, could be fine. "Alex, I may be cut off from some aspects of Heaven, but this bullet wound… it's not fatal to me." He grimaced just a little. "It is, however, surprisingly painful."

"I'm so sorry, Cas," Alex said, pained by association, by the thought that he was hurting because of her. She looked around the room, overwrought. "Okay," she mumbled, refocused herself, trying to think, holding her clean hand against the side of her head, thinking out loud. "Okay. First aid kit."

She left him sitting on the bed and hurried over to where the duffel bags had all been tossed, wiping the blood off her palm against her dress skirt haphazardly as she crouched down and began frantically rummaging through Sam's bag. She knew there was a first aid kit and some medical tools in her twin's bag somewhere. Cas watched her quietly. She found the kit and then went to her bag, pulled something out of the very bottom—a flask.

Alex came back to Cas and handed him the flask, wincing a little—the irony of this wasn't lost on her. "I have to take the bullet out," she told him quickly. "It's going to hurt a lot. This… might help with the pain, a little? I don't know. It's worth a shot." Cas took the flask from her slowly, looked at her questioningly. "It's absinthe," she explained, glancing at him as she raked through the contents of the first aid kit. "Pretty strong stuff… my secret stash that I was saving for—" she let out a cynical little chuckle, "a special occasion." She shook her head ruefully, nodded at the flask. "Drink up." After visiting 2014 and seeing a Cas who had been into some pretty screwed up crap, Alex didn't like giving him the absinthe—it was a_ full_ flask, too—but she also knew taking out a bullet hurt like hell and it would help if he could be a little wasted again.

Castiel looked at the flask in his hand, hesitated… thought of the visions of the future he'd seen where he'd been an alcoholic and a complete wreck of a man… wondered why he hadn't thought of that grim future before right now. It might have been helpful to think about it before he'd done the things he'd done in the past twenty-four hours. Maybe when he'd been about to drink an entire store of liquor. Maybe when he'd been about to take Alex's virginity. Things he couldn't take back or undo. He didn't see any reason to avoid this, either, anymore. He felt hopeless about his dismal future, about how foolish he was, how he was walking straight down the path he'd been trying to avoid all this time.

He raised the flask to his lips, tilted his head back, drank deeply, drained the entire thing. The alcohol burned his throat, he was viciously reminded of last night when he'd downed bottle after bottle of every kind of liquor at the store. He finished the flask off, unsure if it actually would abate any of the pain radiating from the hole in his chest. He felt mildly muddled again, a little woozy. Was it because of the alcohol or the pain?

Alex laid a silver pair of some kind of silver medical tongs—hemostats, he thought—onto the bed after quickly wiping them down with an alcohol pad. She then took out some gauze and medical tape, set them beside the tongs, looked at Cas with a tense expression, then came to stand in between his parted knees… and Castiel was suddenly very affected by her physical nearness. Memories of what had happened earlier that night, not even twenty minutes ago, suddenly filled his mind. He tried not to look at her and remember what she felt like underneath the skin of his hands, how she'd looked and sounded near the end of it all, how she'd clung to him and made him _feel_… and then he remembered the horrible sound of pain she'd made when they first began, and he felt awash in terrible self-loathing again. The amount of physical pleasure he'd found in her had been immeasurable and all-consuming and he'd never even known feelings like that could exist at all… but it was all at the expense of her pain. Knowing he could derive such immense pleasure from something that hurt her was devastating to Cas.

"You, uh, you'll need to take your coat and jacket off," Alex told him, eyes flickering up to his. She said it softly, shyly almost. And Cas, forced out of his thoughts, began to try to comply, but his whole left side was struggling to move properly, and he couldn't. Perplexed at how one single little piece of metal lodged in the flesh of his vessel could so impede his range of movement, Cas stared down at himself, then started slightly when Alex began to help him. She pulled his left arm up, tugged the sleeve of the jacket and coat off together, gently. Then pushed at the right side of the clothing, allowing him to extract his arm easily. He looked at her silently. He was now sitting there in his shirt and tie—and a bright red blotch stood out against the crisp white dress shirt. Alex's eyes had gone to it like metal to a magnet—concern and pain flitted across her features again, she wet her lips unconsciously before visibly refocusing. "Shirt, too," she told him, and there was no mistaking the nervous tremble in her voice.

Hyper-aware of every movement she was making, every little thing she did, Cas held stock still as she worked his tie loose. She glanced at him a couple times fleetingly as she pulled it up and over his head—Cas continued to watch her openly as she carefully pulled his shirt out of where it had been messily tucked into his pants—their eyes met briefly, and he wondered if she was thinking of what they had done earlier, too. She unbuttoned each button, starting at the bottom button and working her way up steadily, slowly. He watched the way her pulse fluttered in her neck, the tense way her jaw flexed. The way her eyes avoided his now. She unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and finally looked him in his waiting eyes. There was a pause, and then she seemed to remember herself and pushed the shirt away and down, her eyes dropping to the wound in his chest.

"Oh, _Cas_…" she whispered, sounding so pained. The soft way she'd said his name was overwhelming to him. She ran a few fingers down the skin just beside the wound. Underneath her fingers, his chest rose and fell a little faster than before. Her eyes came to his again, and a sad, cajoling little smile came to her lips. "Even angels bleed sometimes, huh?" she asked him softly. And he was startled, shocked—remembering the visions of the future Anna had shown him. Remembering that Alex had said those _exact words_ to him in the visions. Alex hesitated now, taking in his expression, seeing that something was wrong. "What is it?" she asked, voice laced with worry.

He shook his head, looked down. He was filled with despair at the thought of those visions of the future, and didn't want her to know any of the painful details. "Nothing," he told her, unable to bear the thought of any of it actually happening, even though he'd taken yet another step toward fulfilling fate that night.

She didn't seem to believe his claim of 'nothing' but nodded, looked at his wound and made a small circle with her lips, expelled a heavy, dread-filled breath through them. She grabbed up the silver tong tool from beside his knee where she'd laid it and she then leaned close, looked into the wound. "I can see it. Didn't go in too deep." She glanced up at him. "Ready?"

He gave a shallow little nod, racked over with guilt and despair but trying to push those things aside for the moment. He focused on her, watched what she did. She took a deep breath, braced his shoulder with her left hand, held him still as she carefully opened the tongs and pushed them into the hole made by the bullet. She was grimacing. The cold metal brushing against raw, exposed muscles and tissue hurt, but then he felt the lodged bullet shift as the tongs grabbed it and he gritted his teeth together. "I've got it," Alex said, and swallowed, looking at him, her face screwed up with concern. "This is really gonna hurt, Cas. Hold on."

Her grip tightened on his shoulder and she pulled the bullet straight out—Cas was surprised when an agonized groan ripped out of his throat, when pain exploded in the vicinity of his chest at the extraction of the small piece of metal. And then it was out, it was over, he was breathing heavily, she had already pressed some gauze over the hole, was putting the hemostats down and grabbing the tape. Cas didn't understand why he was feeling so much pain. He'd been shot, stabbed, slammed around in this vessel without feeling much of anything before. But now he felt, and so _much_. Good things _and_ bad things.

"Hold this," Alex told him, nodding toward the gauze over the bullet wound, and he did, obeying automatically, confused and in pain. He watched her as she ripped off some tape and carefully secured the gauze, taped it down tightly. She looked like she had done this sort of thing before. Many times, actually, she was very precise and careful. Gentle, too. And her fingers brushing against his bare skin sent increasingly familiar feelings of awakening through him—the feelings of pain lessened, and in their place, the stirrings of desire and longing. He shouldn't want this. He shouldn't want her. But he did. _So much_. He felt himself becoming distressed at his thoughts. He was confused and unsure as to what he should be thinking or feeling. There was a war inside of him, two sides pitted against one another. One side insisted he stop playing with fire—it had gone far enough, _too _far. The other side told him it was already too late and begged him not to even leave Alex's side for a moment—wanted to kiss her again, wanted to feel and know her from the inside again…

Castiel grew flustered, looking away as she put a final strip of tape across the gauze. Her eyes glanced up to his, she straightened up but remained there between his knees. She was looking at him in concern, her eyes soft. "I can't… I can't believe you took a bullet for me," she said quietly, shaking her head a little. She seemed stunned and disbelieving.

He frowned just a little, because she shouldn't be amazed that he would sacrifice everything for her. She should know that even though he'd failed her countless times before, it wasn't because he was unwilling. "I'm your guardian," he told her. "I would take a thousand bullets for you."

His words seemed to do something to her—he immediately saw how they affected her—eyes jumping up to his, mouth parting softly, breathing quickening slightly. "You… you can't say things like that to me," she said softly, in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Why not?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.

She looked hesitant to say it, she seemed vulnerable and afraid almost, and she shook her head a little, backpedaling. "Um. Nothing." She tried to downplay herself, shrugged, attempted to smile nonchalantly, act as though everything were fine. "Never mind."

Sensing it was important, Cas looked up at her in concern. "Tell me," he requested fervently, trying to understand what he'd done wrong. Her eyes locked onto his. He could see how unguarded she was, how frightened she was to say whatever she was about to say. And he wished he could make it so she never had to be afraid of anything ever again. She swallowed slowly. Her voice was still barely a whisper when she told him. "Because when you tell me things like that…" her voice cracked in anguish, softened to a mere whisper, "how can I not fall in love with you?"

The minute she said those words, everything in him went quiet and still, even as so much _everything _surged forth in him that he didn't even know how to begin to process it—he didn't even think about it, there was no protest in his mind. He only moved to meet her, craning his neck upwards to meet her lips with his—his hands boldly went to her waist, and when their lips met, he heard himself make a soft sound of relief or maybe it was despair—he pulled her to him and downward, his arms circling completely around her waist, his hands against her ribcage on either side. Her knees came to either side of his hips as he pulled her close, he felt her hands, warm and small, hesitant on his torso, then braver, going around his middle—her arms encircling him, skin to skin.

And kissing was just the pressure of two pairs of lips against each other, love was just chemical reactions in the human brain; neurological processes and pheromones and libido and vasopressin and oxytocin working together to trigger reactions and connections. It was chemistry, plain and simple. Except, it wasn't. Castiel could not downplay anything he felt for Alex to something as simple as science or biology. It went so much deeper than that. It transcended everything he'd ever thought or known.

Here with her against him, her sweet and spellbinding mouth on his, Cas thought, vaguely, that this place—with her—was like heaven to him, and his arms tightened around her protectively. She whimpered a little into his mouth, and at that sound, Cas pulled away, broke the kiss. Remembering himself, he searched the brown-green depths of her eyes, breathless. And all the things he knew, all the knowledge he possessed about how wrong this was—an angel and a human—it all seemed invalid and flimsy standing against the weight of all the things he felt for her. Their arms still circled one another, she was close to him, and he wanted to belong here—anywhere near to her. So much emotion surged forth inside of him. He thought of her giving herself to him so completely and so ardently, of how there had been nothing left between them at all, of how she'd made him feel: alive. Real.

Her eyes fell away from his for a moment, she looked down at his chest with a tense expression, traced her fingers across the top of the makeshift bandage she'd put on him. She was worried. Her eyes came back up to his, and she looked so lost, so conflicted and mournful. Her eyes shone with unshed tears. A wavering whispered plea left her lips. "I don't understand why we can't."

The misery she spoke with echoed through him, he could hear how she felt. Hopeless and desperate for things to be different. And he felt the pangs of regret again, realized how much of a wretched hypocrite he was. He had told her time and time again that they couldn't pursue romantic involvement—he had told _himself _time and time again that he couldn't allow it. And still, it had happened, had spun out of control and _fast_ and now he'd done the unthinkable. He didn't know what to tell her. He needed her more than he knew what to do with, and yet he knew that being together was what would destroy them both in the end, if those visions of the future were accurate.

He continued to search her eyes, trying to find something to say to her, trying to determine where to go from here, what to do. He was so painfully aware in that moment that the two of them were from two different realms entirely. That the things they had done together in secret, dark places were expressly forbidden, were considered abominable to Heaven. Castiel felt grief building as he thought again of how he'd taken her innocence so readily and thoughtlessly. Not only had he wronged her by Heaven's standards, but by earth's as well.

Suddenly, the motel door swung open with a loud bang.

* * *

**A Couple Minutes Ago**

"Cas, get her outta here, _now_!" Dean shouted, even as he just barely intercepted Rob, who was charging at Sam—who had just tackled Jane, sending her pistol clattering to the floor. "Outta my way!" Rob shouted, shoving Dean—who replied with a shove of his own and then a punch to the face. Rob toppled backwards, stunned and collapsing onto the ground as Dean whirled around, heated. "Everyone just calm the fuck _down_!" he shouted, breathing heavily and glaring at everyone, ready to deck the first person who even_ looked_ at him wrong.

Pastor Gideon picked up the fallen gun, looked at Jane, who struggled in vain against Sam. The pastor appeared to be shellshocked by what had happened. He looked at the townspeople that had come with him—three men and a woman. "Everyone needs to go home," he told them, faintly. "Just, just go home." Looking equally stunned, the four people exchanged looks and then complied and filed out of the bar. Jane's protesting shouts rang out after them. "I did what had to be done!" She shouted, yanking uselessly against Sam's iron grip. "I _protected _the _flock_!"

No one turned back around, the door swung shut, and Jane looked at the Pastor, angry and betrayed. "I want to see my _son_ again! Leah said if we did what the angels say, if we purified the sinners out from among ourselves, we'd get to Paradise! Don't you _want_ that?! David, you can see your _wife_ again!"

"This isn't right," the pastor said in a daze of horror, looking at Paul's body, not seeming to hear Jane's insistent tirade at all.

"You're damn straight it's not right," Dean put in angrily, whirling and bearing down on Jane, who shrank a little into Sam at his sudden approach. "You killed a man, you _get that_ lady?" Dean demanded.

"He was a _sinner_," Jane retorted, regaining some of her defiant bravado, jutting her chin out and staring down her nose at Dean contemptuously. In response, he chuckled darkly, looked down. "What's so funny," Jane said, voice tinged with a note of suspicion.

"You know, you act all high and mighty and righteous but really, you're just as low as the rest of us. Shooting a man in cold blood—trying to kill my _sister_?" Dean's smile was gone. In its place was a chilling, threatening stare. "Lady, you pissed off the wrong guy tonight." He wet his lips, leaned closer to her, giving the impression of careful, contained rage. "You know how lucky you are to still be breathing air?" His voice was suddenly a shout. "_No one _shoots at my sister or my brother and lives to tell about it, you hear me?"

Dean looked back and down at Rob, who was staring up at him from the floor, blood running out of his nose and into his mouth. Dean looked back at Jane, making sure she knew he wasn't playing around. "So you and Rob here got about ten seconds to get the hell outta here before I return the favor—are we clear?" Sam looked slightly shocked by Dean's threatening rant, which wasn't over yet. Dean stepped closer again to Jane, lowered his voice. "If you come near me... my sister... my brother again... I won't hesitate to shoot you where you stand. Now clear the fuck out of here before I get trigger happy."

Sam took the cue and let go of Jane, who yanked her arms away angrily, pulled her husband up off the floor, and gave Sam and Dean dirty looks. Rob, sort of dazed, his arm over his wife's shoulder, looked at the pastor, confused and questioning. The pastor shook his head, held out a placating hand. "Just… let me handle this, Jane, Rob. Go home."

Jane said nothing, just shot Dean another glare over her shoulder as she and her husband stumbled out of the bar and into the night.

"_Bitch_," Dean muttered, shaken up and pissed off, half-blind with rage. "That… that wasn't supposed to happen," Pastor Gideon said, hollow and in shock, holding the gun, staring at it blankly.

"Yeah well, it _did_," Dean retorted, and looked down at Paul's dead body on the ground. He sobered, his anger faded away into deep, painful sadness. He'd thrown a punch and started the entire fight that got this poor chump killed. Adding another stupid, pointless death he felt responsible for to the roster he kept in his mind, Dean glanced at his brother, who was silent and looked upset, shocked by what had just happened just like the pastor. As usual, the only one who could hold it together when shit went down, Dean forced his feelings away, focused on the problem at hand. "What the hell was Jane saying about purifying the flock?" he asked the padre, who came out of his fog slowly. "She, uh, my daughter, Leah… she said that the angels are angry. That some people in the town were holding us back from reaching Paradise. Paul's name came up and… I..." the pastor shook his head hollowly, he went quiet.

"What, so Leah told you to go out and gun down any poor sons of bitches who weren't compliant with angel rules?" Dean demanded incredulously, judgementally.

"Dean," Sam put in, coming forward, giving Dean the '_cool it, would you?_' look he so often gave. "Pastor Gideon… it's not your fault," Sam consoled earnestly. "Now, it's unfortunate that Paul died, but we can't do anything about that now. We need to focus on figuring out what is going on here with your daughter." Pastor Gideon's questioning look deepened, was offset by fearfulness. Especially when Sam's voice lowered a little. "I have reason to believe she's not a prophet at all."

Dean looked at Sam, frowning deeply—this was news to him. "But... the angels speak to her," Pastor Gideon protested. "She knows things no one else could possibly know, she's saved us from demons."

"Come on, Pastor," Sam reasoned. "Something's wrong here and you know it."

"It's the end of times, it's supposed to be a little rough around the edges," the pastor said, a very lame excuse that he delivered without any real conviction—only a lot of growing uncertainty. "Haven't you boys read the good book? God's wrath is serious business."

"Huh," Dean commented wryly, sarcastically. "Do _you_ even believe that crap you're trying to sell?"

The pastor looked at Dean, seeming defeated. "What else am I supposed to believe?"

Dean smiled facetiously. "How about that God doesn't give two craps about you or anyone else on the planet, and that the angels are all a bunch of assholes who want to destroy the world, huh?"

Surprise filtered across the pastor's face, and Sam looked at Dean, slack jawed, unable to believe what a total dick he was being. Sam forcibly stowed his anger at Dean to try and focus on mollifying the situation and the pastor. "Listen. We're going to find out what's going on here, okay?"

The words had only just left Sam's mouth before Dean was yet again speaking out of turn, making the situation that much worse. "Hey, could you us all a favor and stop trying to give the guy false hope? This is just the end of times and shit happens, like he said. Everyone's gonna die, why fight it?"

Sam wheeled on Dean, barely able to keep from hitting his brother across the face at this point. "_Dean_, could you just—"

"_What_, Sam?" Dean demanded, almost as if he were _trying _to get Sam to hit him. "Could I just _what_?"

"Just shut up and stop _talking_!" Sam shouted, and Dean gave him an annoyed eye roll. "Yeah, sure. I'll do ya one better," he replied sarcastically, and turned, walked out of the bar and slammed the door behind himself.

_What the hell was his damn problem!?_ Sam watched his brother leave, his fists clenched tight—and then he remembered the pastor and struggled to calm himself, huffing in frustration, trying not to let his intense anger control him. "Listen, we're gonna figure this out Pastor Gideon, okay?" Sam said, turned on his heel to follow his brother, who needed a smack in the face. "Wait, what am I—supposed to do?" The Pastor asked, almost frantically, and Sam paused, turned back around, racked his brain. He was so flustered and riled up that he could barely think.

"Just, just try to keep the people calm, try to keep everyone in their houses, okay? Stay with Leah and if she starts talking about killing people or carrying out God's wrath, whatever, _come get us_." And Sam went out of the bar, looked left and right, saw no sign of Dean—and thinking fast, decided Dean would have gone back to the motel room. Sam hurried around the corner back to the motel room, distressed as hell, barely able to see straight.

He opened the door to their motel room, slamming it actually, barely noticing anything—not Alex jumping back from Cas, not the wide-eyed guilt on their faces, not Cas's shirtlessness—all Sam saw was that Dean didn't seem to be there and he turned around, desperately looking out at the motel parking lot, searching for any sign of Dean. He saw no sign of _anyone_. "Great. Just friggin' _great_," he muttered, thinking of his older brother out wandering the streets with a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas. He turned back around, closed the door behind himself, trying to figure out what to do now.

"What _happened_?" Alex asked, looking at her twin in confusion and concern. "Where's Dean? You okay?"

"Oh yeah, I'm _awesome_," Sam ranted, running a hand through his hair, coming into the room, unfocused. "Leah told the townspeople that there are _sinners_ among them and if they want to get to Paradise, they have to… _purify the flock_." Sam was _pissed_. "And to top it all off, Dean's being an asshole and I have no idea where he went now." He let out a heavy breath, tried to calm himself down, realized he was going to have to take charge and figure this whole thing out if Dean was going to bail like this. Sam turned his attention to Cas.

"Cas, any idea—_whoa_." Sam stopped short when he finally looked at Cas point blank. The angel was shirtless—there was a huge wound dressing across his chest on the left, there was a discarded, bloody white shirt beside him. Sam's expression dropped, he was scrambled for understanding as sudden alarm rose up. "What—"

"He got shot," Alex said, arms crossed. What? How? And Sam saw that his sister had some blood on her hands—_oh my God_—Sam realized as he rewound mentally: Jane hadn't missed his sister like he had thought—she'd hit Cas instead, who'd put _himself between the bullet and Alex_. Horrified, awed realization dawned on Sam, who suddenly found breathing difficult. "Holy shit, Cas," he breathed, looking at the angel intently. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Well. I'll _be_ fine." Cas sounded grumpy. "I feel drunk again. That liquor was very potent."

He followed Cas's scowl to a silver flask laying on the bed—Alex's, he recognized it—and Sam swooped in, picked it up, sniffed, then made a face and a disgusted noise. "_Absinthe_?" He asked, looking at Alex with eyes that were already lecturing her before he even opened his mouth. "Alex..." he started, his tone very chastising.

She looked at him unhappily, shook her head, heading to the kitchenette. "Don't, Sam."

And realizing there were more pressing matters at hand, he listened, dropped the subject and the flask, too. The sink began to run as Alex washed the blood off of her hands. "All right, listen, we gotta figure out what is going on in this town," Sam said intensely, talking with his hands. "Before more people are killed."

Cas, moving stiffly and seeming in a good bit of pain, turned toward Sam a little as Alex shook her wet hands vigorously and came to stand beside Sam. "This Leah Gideon is a false prophet. I think I know who she is," Cas said, and he looked at the book that he had brought back from the Vatican—it sat where he'd left it on the coffee table. Alex followed his gaze and went and got the book, took it to Cas wordlessly. Wincing a little, he laid the book on his knee, balancing the spine there as he paged through it. Alex sat gingerly beside him, held one side of the book to keep it from falling off. Again, Sam was stilled by the sight of the two of them beside and near each other. Alex seemed uncomfortable under Sam's gaze, kept her gaze on the book purposefully. _Jesus_, Sam thought in awe. The guy had_ taken a bullet_ for Alex.

Cas was focused on the book in front of himself. It had yellowed paper and middle-english looking text filling the pages. Inky black and white illustrations filled some pages completely. Cas flipped through it slowly, with one hand, then seemed to find the page he was looking for. Sam came closer to peer down over Cas's shoulder and into the book. He saw an illustration of a woman riding on a seven-faced beast filled the right-hand page, and above the artwork _The Whore of Babylon_ was written in red letters.

"_The woman will be made drunk on the blood of the innocent_," Castiel read, "_and with the blood of the martyrs. And she shall come, bearing false prophecy, turning the citizens of earth against one another other._" He looked up at Sam. "She rises when Lucifer walks the earth. This creature has the power to take a human's form, read minds."

"How can you be sure that's what Leah is?" Sam asked.

"I'll have to see her with my own eyes," Castiel replied, shutting the book and putting it on the bed beside him, prompting Sam to move back a little. "I'll be able to see her true face." Cas stood up, didn't seem too steady on his feet. Sam wasn't sure if he should steady him or stay back. "Maybe you better wait a little bit…?" Sam cautioned hesitantly.

Alex, who had stood up right after Cas did, spoke up. "Cas… I just dug a bullet out of you. Can you at least put your clothes back on before you shazam out of here?" She gave him a matter-of-fact look. "You can't just go around town half-naked." She picked up his shirt then her expression faded as she saw the bright red stain. "It's all bloody."

Cas took the shirt in his hands and suddenly, the blood disappeared—the shirt looked brand new. Sam's mouth dropped open a little bit. "How do you _do_ that?" Sam asked, awed once again.

"It's a simple manipulation sequence of the atoms in a specified area of matter," Castiel explained, blasé, as he put his right arm into the sleeve and pulled the shirt half-on. He sounded as if he were commenting on the weather out of boredom. But Sam was deeply impressed—then pausing, thinking of something. "Wait—can't you heal yourself?"

Cas glanced in Sam's direction but didn't look directly at him. "Not anymore," he answered heavily, and began to struggle with the left sleeve of his shirt, grimacing—and Alex saw that and began helping to guide his hand into the sleeve, gently. Sam saw how Cas looked at her then, and he wasn't sure how to even begin to describe the quiet and subtle adoration that filled Castiel's face. And if that wasn't enough, Alex was re-buttoning Cas's shirt for him as the angels's arms hung at his sides. Sam inexplicably felt like he was witnessing an extremely private moment and a little uncomfortable, he averted his eyes for a minute, then watched out of the corner of his eye. Alex replaced Cas's tie and tightened it carefully, and Sam saw that her hands lingered a little longer than necessary on the knot, the gaze the two shared was intense as hell. Alex glanced Sam's way, stepped back from Cas, who glanced at Sam, picked up his trench coat off the bed, then looked at Alex, told her, "I won't be long," and then disappeared with the soft sound of wind and wings.

Always startled when he did that, Sam blinked, then looked at his sister, who seemed tired and looked as though she'd been through hell and back. "...you sure you're all right?" Sam asked her after a couple silent beats, and she attempted an _I'm fine _smile. "Yeah, uh, it's just been... a crazy night," she said, and she was distracted, not really paying attention to Sam.

"You're telling me," Sam said, and fixed her with a questioning gaze. "So, hey, what hap—"

The door of the motel room opened loudly, and the twins turned to see Dean coming in, Paul's blood all over his hands, a sour expression on his face. "Dean! You all right?" Alex asked, even as Sam fixed his brother with an accusing stare and asked almost at the same time, "where did you go?"

"Hey, hey, enough with the twenty questions," Dean muttered, ignoring them and walking over to the kitchenette sink. "Just give me a damn second." He began to wash his hands, let out a heavy gust of air, seemed to regulate a little bit. "All I know is this is a bad time to be in Blue Earth," he commented darkly, and shook the water off his hands, turned around, looked at his siblings with an unhappy expression on his face, opened his mouth to say something. And then the soft sound of angel wings alerted them to Castiel's reappearance. The angel stood at the far end of the room, near the bathroom door. "That didn't take long," Sam commented in mild surprise.

"It's her," Castiel announced.

"It's who?" Dean asked loudly, frowning intently. He didn't like to be out of the information loop. "The Whore," Cas replied. "The _Whore_?" Dean repeated, incredulous.

"We'll need to kill her," Castiel said, and came a little closer, into better light.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, back up two seconds, Cas buddy," Dean said irritably, "What are you talking about and w—" he suddenly stopped talking, looked at Cas's chest sharply. "Are you... _bleeding_?" The bullet hole and bloodstain had stayed there on Cas's trench coat and Dean was staring openly.

Cas looked annoyed, made an impatient face. "It... is not of import," he told Dean in a strange, clipped tone. Dean looked officially shocked. He looked at Sam and Alex for an explanation. "What's wrong with him?"

"He's... a little drunk. Or hung over. Not really sure which," Sam supplied. Dean had looked back at Cas, flabbergasted. "You're drunk and you got _shot_?" Dean demanded, apparently not able to believe it, but then realization dawned over his features, he looked at Alex, then at Cas, and Sam could literally see the lightbulb go off in Dean's head. His mouth hung open a little bit, he looked shocked and freaked out. "Cas did you… _take a bullet _for my sister?" he sounded awed in disbelief.

"Yes," Castiel confirmed neutrally, and Dean blinked rapidly several times, speechless, looked at Alex, who appeared to feel guilty. "I'll be fine," Cas said, his expression stern and businesslike. He didn't appear to want to discuss the matter any further. "We need to talk about what's going on here in this town."

"Yeah, uh, sure," Dean said, sounding shellshocked and taken aback. "Uh… I'm all ears. What you guys got?"

"It's Leah Gideon. She is _not _Leah Gideon." Castiel took the book he'd left on the bed and crossed the room with it, sat down on the couch and laid the book out on the coffee table, tapped the page. "Book of Revelation calls her the Whore of Babylon. She's behind everything that's happening in this town right now," Dean and Sam both went to sit near Cas, Alex hung back. "She rises when Lucifer walks the earth and has the power to take a human's form, read minds, control certain forces of darkness," Cas continued, then paused heavily. "The real Leah was probably killed months ago."

"So Leah isn't Leah," Dean surmised in deep thought. "Why all the demons attacking the town?"

"They're under her control."

"And the Enochian exorcism?" Sam questioned.

Castiel frowned. "What?"

"_Rah bah zu na ooh zow tay_," Alex recited from memory, to which Cas looked down, an amused, surprisingly boyish grin suddenly playing on his features. "What's so funny?" Dean demanded suspiciously, glancing at Alex then scowling at Cas.

"It's fake," Cas explained, trying to hide a smile. "It actually means, 'you, um, breed with the mouth of a goat.'" He looked at Sam and Dean, whose faces were blank. Cas peered up at Alex, who stood across from him, leaning against the partition as she tried to hide her amusement—and Cas chuckled softly, glanced at Dean again—and the smile faltered under the _what the hell is your problem _look Dean was giving him. Cas looked at Sam, who looked equally unamused. "It's... funnier in Enochian," the angel said.

Dean looked at Alex, who was still trying to cover up her smile and he rolled his eyes. "You two are so lame." He looked at Cas, the bloodstain on the trench coat, and visibly let it go. "So the demons smoking out—that's just a con? Why? What's the endgame?"

Refocused, Castiel thought hard. "What you just saw—innocent blood spilled in God's name. Her goal is to condemn as many souls to hell as possible. And it's just beginning. She's well on her way to dragging this whole town into the pit."

"You said we had to kill her?" Sam asked, remembering what Cas had said a minute ago. "Precisely," Castiel confirmed.

"Alright. So how do we go Pimp of Babylon all over this bitch?" Dean asked, and got a strange, puzzled look from the angel. "I rarely understand your strange choice of words, Dean," he complained, then narrowed his eyes in thought. "We'll need a stake made from a cypress tree that grew in Babylon."

"Great, I've got one of those in the back of my car," Dean muttered sarcastically.

Cas looked at Dean sidelong. "I can get it for us, Dean. You don't have to be so cynical." Dean was visibly taken aback by Cas's comment. The angel had stood up right after saying it, crossed the room to the kitchen. He took an empty glass off the counter and filled it with water. Dean and Sam watched him do that in surprise. "But there's the issue of who will kill her," Cas said, turning around and sipping the water. Alex watched him discreetly, thinking he must have remembered how she'd taught him that water could help sober him up.

"What do you mean, who'll kill her? One of _us_," Dean said, like Cas was an idiot. Cas gave the oldest Winchester an impatient glance. "I don't think so. It's not that easy."

"'Course not," Dean commented dryly, and pulled the heavy book off the table, flipped through it, like he was looking for something. Cas continued to explain. "The Whore can only be killed by a true Servant of Heaven."

"Oh yeah? And who'd that be?" Dean asked, not bothering to camouflage his snide tone, glancing up at Cas from the page.

"Not you," Cas answered matter-of-factly. "Or me. Sam, of course, is an abomination." Sam looked offended, but Cas didn't notice. "We'll have to find someone else."

There was a short silence, and then Dean looked up from the book at Sam, then Alex, then Cas. "Why not Alex?" he asked.

Cas looked startled. "What?"

"Yeah, says here a pure soul can be a Servant of Heaven, in some cases," Dean said, raising the book slightly off his lap in indication. Sam craned his neck and saw that Dean had found the page titled _The Servant of Heaven_. An illustration of a floating man with arms spread out in a welcoming, saintly gesture covered one of the pages. "I'm just saying," Dean said, "she's ganked some pretty bad sons of bitches in her day, and look at this checklist."

Alex had darted over, was looking closely at where Dean was pointing. _A pure soul is whole, human, and belongs to a virgin_. _Those who possess a pure soul are often found to be a servant of heaven, should their intentions be pure and divine. _

Dean looked at Alex, who was trying not to wither away as she realized. _Holy shit. Crowley… Lucifer… the pure soul crap she'd totally forgotten about until just now… oh my God. _"Pure soul…" Dean was saying with a nonchalant shrug, looking at Cas again. "She matches the bill."

Sam looked like he was having a difficult time accepting that, looking at Alex sort of intently, then Cas, who set down his water with a loud crack. "Dean," the angel said loudly, his voice harsh with sudden anger, "Your sister was gunned down just two days ago and died—she was shot at today and would have died if I hadn't been there and you want to put her in harm's way _again_?"

Dean was quieted at the outburst, by the sudden reminders of how close his sister had come to dying recently. How she _had_ died recently. How had Dean forgotten? And maybe he was so shamed by what Cas had said, how guilty he suddenly felt for everything that had happened to her that he didn't take into consideration how strange it was that Alex didn't argue or tell them to fuck off and of course she could take care of one goofy little Whore of Babylon. Her eerie silence went unnoticed by Dean, who instead looked at Cas, feeling oddly chastised under the angel's scowl. His eyes went to the bullet hole again and he clenched his jaw, realized how much he owed Cas. "Well then _who_?" he asked helplessly.

Cas shook his head. "I'll find someone. First, I need to get the weapon." He looked at Alex grimly, his expression going odd. "I'll be back later." And Cas disappeared with nothing further.

There was a thick silence. "The dude sure is overprotective," Dean commented wryly, looking at Alex, trying to be funny and maybe make some temporary peace—he knew he was a little hard to be around right now—but he just got an _are you fucking kidding me_ look from her. She looked tense, drawn, and troubled beyond her years. And beside Dean, Sam was leaning over his knees, hands clasped, staring at the floor with a stiff jaw. The three of them were all completely silent, and after a couple seconds, Dean put his face in his hands, overwhelmed with life, with responsibility, with this situation they were facing in the midst of the apocalypse crisis.

He was beyond tired, beyond exhausted. He barely had anything left to give and yet life kept coming and demanding more and more of him. Being around his siblings was a constant reminder of how screwed up he was, how much he had to lose, how much of a constant failure he was. He could_ feel_ how unhappy and disappointed his siblings were with him, and he just couldn't take it. Not when he remembered himself at five years old and being the one who'd taught the two of them how to walk—watching them take their first steps and being there to catch them when they fell over. Not when he remembered how Alex always used to run to him when she was in her pre-school years, knowing he'd catch her and whirl her around in circles. Not when he remembered Sam coming to him for help with math homework, and then telling him he was the best big brother in the world. It hurt to remember all that stuff because right now he felt like the two people he loved most in the world were depending on him but he couldn't even depend on himself anymore.

Feeling overwhelmed with growing despair and emotion, Dean stood up, grabbed his jacket, heard Sam stand up, too. "Dean, don't leave again," he pleaded, to which Dean turned back, held a reassuring hand out, glanced at his sister, whose expression was unreadable. "I just—I just need some space, okay?" he asked, trying not to sound as broken as he felt. "I'll be in the car." Sam's expression still begged Dean not to go, but Dean left anyway.

And so the siblings went their separate ways.

Dean would go to the Impala and sit in the driver's seat, a place where he felt like he'd spent half his life. He would stare straight ahead all night, alone, but by choice—sleepless and depressed, questioning his entire life and wrestling with the choice he had to make. Trying to figure out a way to protect his family, but not sure if it were possible anymore.

Alex would go to the shower. She'd sit down underneath the stream of hot water and wrap her arms around her legs—and there, she'd break down and freak out about the pure soul she'd forfeited, wonder if she ruined a chance to defeat the devil and save her brothers. Wonder what the hell was going to happen with herself and Cas after that night. She'd think how unfair it was that Paul was dead. She'd despair at how distant she felt from Dean.

And Sam. He would watch his siblings go in opposite directions and remain uncertain of what to do. He'd go to the couch and crack open a book and stare at it unseeingly, unable to concentrate, unable to think straight. He'd remain unsure as to why Dean was being so horrible, unsure as to what had Alex so upset. Sam would think about the way Castiel had looked at her, about the fact that the angel had saved her life that night.

And when Alex came out of the bathroom, dressed in a pair of jeans and her old gray hoodie, the twins wouldn't speak a word. She would just crawl into one of the beds and curl up, facing away from him. And Sam would accept her silence sadly and wonder when his family had become such a disastrous wreck. He'd wonder how to fix it, then wonder if it were fixable at all.

About two hours after Dean went to the car, Sam would be startled out of the quiet stillness of the room by Cas's sudden reappearance and his announcement of "I have the stake."

* * *

A solitary figure in a tan trench coat stood on a rocky bluff where a lone, forgotten cypress tree overlooked the city of Babylon. At his side, Castiel held the bare end of the branch he'd broken off. He gazed at the beauty of creation around him. The sun was just beginning to rise here in Babylon, casting a soft pink glow over the barren, rocky landscape and the still-sleeping city. And he lost track of time, he lost track of everything. He could only think of Alex, could only curse himself for his fault in destroying her status as a pure soul—and was horrified that he hadn't even thought about that or realized it until Dean had said what he had. Cas debated with himself, thought hard about how to make it right, or if it _could _be made right. Tried to trace through the time that he'd known Alex, tried to pinpoint exactly when the way he thought of her had turned into this, into something that seemed impossible to walk away from.

He thought, briefly, about how Dean might react if he found out everything Castiel had done with Alex. Nothing that he didn't deserve, he thought wryly, guiltily, and he saw Alex's young, innocent face flash before him in his mind's eye. His heart sank in self-loathing. How had he dared to do what he'd done? And why did he want to _do it again_? To crush her against himself and bury himself inside of her, find that peak of perfection and bliss again, hear her moan for him. He shut his eyes, unable to stop himself from thinking these wretched, dishonorable things. He felt despicable.

His body felt awful, his head was beginning to hurt and pound, as if there were someone repeatedly hitting him there with a blunt object. His chest hurt, too, where the bullet had buried itself. Still, that pain almost made him feel better. It was a reminder that he had finally saved Alex instead of failed her. But the momentary triumph wasn't enough. He'd stopped a bullet, but he'd seen the future where he'd _put one in her_, ended her life after failing to protect her from a deadly Croatoan bite. It haunted him. And his logical side told him that staying away was the answer, yet every other part of him screamed in protest at the thought of leaving her. As the wound in his chest pulsed in pain, he thought about how he would do _anything_ to be the one whose life ended in 2013. That if at all possible, he would trade places with her. And maybe, somehow he could. Perhaps, knowing what the future held, he could circumvent it. It was a small hope and a foolish one, but it was all he had. He had done what he'd done, and now he was left to live with the consequences, try to repair the damage done. But he didn't know how. How could make make this right? He'd dishonored the woman who he loved.

_Loved_. He bowed his head. He didn't even know how to love, and yet his spirit confirmed it inside of him time and time again. That love was the thing tying him to her, was what had been growing in him from the first time he'd laid eyes on her almost three years ago. And he supposed_ that _was the fated moment that had damned him, both of them. That gray October day when he had first seen her, this beautiful little dark-haired human with eyes like secrets.

When Castiel looked up, he became aware of how long he'd been standing there—the sun was now well above the horizon—and pushing his torment aside, Castiel went back to the motel—his wings invisibly rending the air apart as his molecules sailed through space and time, his grace carrying him back to where the Winchesters would be waiting. "I have the stake," he announced as he arrived in the motel room—and then he realized the motel room was dark and quiet. His human eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he recognized Alex's sleeping form curled up on one of the beds. On closer examination, he saw that she wore jeans and a gray hoodie now. Her hair was damp and she looked small, peaceful. So young. A wave of sadness rippled through him.

"Hey, Cas," Sam said softly, almost startling Cas, who around to see Alex's twin was sitting on the couch, holding a book. Cas approached him, set the stake down, glancing around, suppressing his thoughts for the moment. "Where's Dean?"

"Out in the car being a loner," Sam said, trying to chuckle, to sound light. But to Castiel, Sam sounded defeated and hopeless. Sam set the book he'd been holding down, stared at it, shook his head. "He's been really different lately, Cas."

Castiel sat in the chair next to the couch and looked at Sam intently. "Different how?"

Sam shrugged, thought a minute. "I dunno. It's like there's no fight left in him. Like he's given up on everything."

Cas frowned, paused, trying to understand what Sam's somewhat vague statement meant. "What are you saying?"

Sam shrugged his hands up uncertainly. "I'm not sure. I guess I'm just worried." Sam let out a heavy breath. "You know, sometimes I forget that he went to Hell and was there for decades, torturing souls." Sam clasped his hands together, looked at them morosely. "He's so much more brutal than he used to be. Maybe that's why, huh?"

"Hell is a terrible place," Castiel replied darkly, remembering. Sam turned, looked at Cas fully. "You saw him there, didn't you?" he asked.

Cas looked at Sam silently, recalled the Dean he'd seen in Hell. He felt himself sour at the memory. "Yes." Cas knew that he couldn't tell Sam the details, that it was all too awful to comprehend. So he remained vague. "Dean was... broken in every way imaginable. At the time, I didn't understand why Heaven demanded his rescue," he told Sam, then shook his head, almost smiled as he thought about everything the Winchesters had changed his mind about. How intrepid and determined they were, but especially Dean. He looked at Sam again. "But I understand now."

Sam was quiet and thinking hard. "Be honest with me, Cas. Do you really think Dean and I can really find a way to cut this whole Michael Lucifer battle royale thing short?"

Cas looked at Sam, meaningful in a quiet way. "If anyone can, it's the two of you."

"Thanks, Cas," Sam said, sounding touched. He cleared his throat. "Should I, uh, go get him?" Sam asked, referencing Dean. Castiel shook his head. "No. Not yet. You all need rest."

"Yeah. Sleep sounds good," Sam said, chuckling again in that airy, slight way he had. "Haven't had any in a day or two." Sam looked at Cas, and there was a long silence. Sam made a face, sort of like he was trying to figure something out. "And, uh, are you just gonna… hang out here all night?" he asked. Cas looked at him in slight surprise at the question. "I'll watch over you," he said, as if Sam should have known that.

But instead, Sam's eyes narrowed a little bit. "… right." Sam looked over at Alex's sleeping form over on the bed, then back at Cas, and his voice lowered a little, his tongue darted out to wet his lips. "Hey, Cas, don't take this the wrong way but… I gotta do this, man. After everything I've, uh, seen. I have to."

Cas frowned, not understanding what he meant. Sam leaned a little closer, over his knees, his expression intent and assertive. "See, Alex is my sister—my _baby _sister—and, I know I've done a crap job of looking out for her in the past but—I mean, it's still my job, you know?" Sam looked like he felt a little awkward at this point, or unsure of how to word himself. "And I'm not judging or anything, I just wanna know—are you and Alex…?" he trailed off, decided to rephrase himself. "I just wanna know what your intentions are."

"My… intentions," Cas repeated, eyes narrowing in confusion. Didn't fathers ask this of men who were courting their daughters?

"Yeah," Sam confirmed. "I just don't want to see her get hurt. And that might seem wrong coming from _me_…" he trailed off and regret and shame filtered across his face. He pushed it aside. "But… when it comes down to it, she's one of the most important things in the world to me."

Castiel bowed his head a little. "Yes. Me too."

Sam's expression wavered a little, hints of surprise and maybe appreciation filtering across his face. "Yeah. You, you took a bullet for her tonight, man. I believe you." He thought for a long, quiet moment, then looked over at Alex again, and his expression became a little tighter, almost sad. "But protecting her from crazy people isn't enough. You, you don't know her like I did, Cas. This tiny little girl who could never say a word. She had no friends, a crazy, horrible childhood… pretty much everyone disappointed her, hurt her, let her down..." he trailed off. "Myself included." Sam's eyes seeming to flicker over memories and he seemed regretful and weary. "I just… I want her to be happy. And okay."

Cas nodded, his eyebrows moving together just a little in deep thought. "I understand."

Sam shook his head, looked at Cas in a way that demanded Cas's full attention. "I don't want you to 'understand', Cas," he said intensely. "I want you to _promise me_." He paused for effect, not taking his gaze off of the angel for a second. "That you won't hurt her or walk out on her. If the two of you are gonna… pursue some kind of relationship or whatever… you gotta promise me, man. You gotta let me know I can _trust you_ with her."

Cas was surprised—not only at Sam's straightforwardness in addressing him like this, but at the sheer amount of respect and love he could hear that Sam held for Alex. Cas had a new appreciation for Alex's twin, who was currently waiting expectantly for Cas's reply. This was not the same Sam who had brutally struck his sister across the face in a fit of demon-blood induced rage. This was a Sam who was worried for his sister, and rightly so. The angel took a deep breath, answered Sam's original question. "My intentions are to always keep her safe, Sam."

Sam didn't look like he was satisfied with that, his eyebrows were raised expectantly and Cas paused heavily, deep in troubled thought. He couldn't explain to Sam the entirety of the situation, how complicated it was. How Alex was the most important thing to him, how he loved her and shouldn't. How she consumed his every thought and desire. How he had all but fallen from grace for her and with her in the Vatican earlier that very night. How he didn't know _what _to do or _how_ to proceed from here, only that he had to keep moving forward.

_You gotta promise me, man. You gotta let me know I can_ trust you _with her._

And with every good intention despite his many doubts and fears, Cas looked up from the floor, met Sam's waiting gaze. Spoke it aloud. "I promise you, Sam."

Sam let out a heavy breath, shoulders relaxing visibly. "Yeah. Okay. Good." He looked at Alex again, and Castiel followed his gaze. "Good," Sam repeated. And Cas felt even more uncertain than ever, sitting there in the quiet darkness, trying to determine his intentions for the girl asleep across the room from him.

* * *

_What time was it_? It was light outside. Alex opened her eyes groggily and squinted, realized she was curled into her arm—she must have knocked the pillow off the bed, she did that all the time—she turned her head up and she saw Cas, sitting there beside her on the bed, a hand on his face and head, like he was trying to soothe a headache. Waking up fast, surprised to see him, not even remembering when she had fallen asleep—she had wanted to try and stay awake to see Cas whenever he returned from Babylon—but apparently she'd crashed. Alex was blinking the sleep out of her eyes and pushing herself up and trying to see if he was okay, all in the span of two seconds. "Cas, hey... are you okay?"

He looked at her, clearly not feeling himself. "Everything hurts. My head especially."

"_O-oh_..." Alex commented slowly, then nodded, gave him a little wincing smile, knowing exactly what the issue was. "Welcome to your first hang over," she told him sympathetically.

"I don't like it," he complained pitifully. She resisted the urge to reach out and ruffle his hair. Instead shrugged kind of helplessly, told him, "no one likes it."

A loud Sam-snore broke the silence and Alex craned her neck sideways, saw Saw asleep on the couch, still sitting up, his mouth open, head lolling toward his shoulder. She noticed a piece of a pale tree branch on the coffee table in front of her sleeping brother. "You got the stake, huh?" she asked Cas, glancing back at the angel who was clearly suffering badly from the headache—and getting an idea, Alex got up, walked across the room.

"Yes," Cas answered her, watching her curiously, his preoccupation with his head pain lessening. "What are you doing?"

She fiddled with the motel coffee pot, poured some coffee grounds into a clean filter. "Making you some coffee," she said, and pushed the brew button. The machine began to groan as it started to brew. "Helps with hangovers."

"I'm past help," he said dismally, prompting Alex to look back at him appraisingly, trying to see if he were joking or not. She didn't think so—he looked positively depressed. "You're being a little over dramatic, aren't you?" she asked, trying to keep her tone light and teasing, but he only looked down. She went over to him, sat down on the bed across from him. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head, his gaze on the floor in avoidance. "Nothing."

Alex looked at him hard, unrelenting in careful appraisal. "Nothing?" she prompted, in a tone that suggested she didn't believe him at all and wanted him to tell her. He glanced up at her, those bright blue eyes locking on hers and captivating her. Suddenly reminded of when those eyes had stared into hers last night—and everything else, the knowledge that she had _been with him_—the memories of what he'd _done to her_—she withered a little, became flustered, looked away.

"So, uh, w-when did you get back?" she asked him, fidgeting a little, glancing at the coffee maker, silently urging it to brew faster. "Several hours ago," he told her.

So, he'd been here all night, close to her as she slept. She felt the awkwardness abate a little as she thought of him sitting there beside her for hours, feeling bad with a headache but remaining close to her, watching over her like he always did. She then noticed that the bullet hole and bloodstain were gone from the trench coat. "Is your… is the wound all right?" Maybe that was what he seemed so torn up about, she thought, but then from his reaction, she realized that didn't seem to be it. He nodded distractedly, not seeming to be concerned about it one way or another. He wouldn't really look at her, obviously distressed about something.

Frowning softly in concern, Alex watched him for a minute, then glanced back at the coffee pot, which had enough coffee in it now to at least pour him a cup. She got up, bothered that Cas was closed off and unresponsive. But maybe she should have expected as much after what had happened. _God_, what had happened. She tried not to remember it, because it was so erotic and Sam was just a few feet away and the memories of Cas last night made her feel fuzzy and warm and _Jesus, get a hold of yourself, Alex_. She poured a mug of coffee and took it to Cas, who accepted the mug and stared at the steam rising up off the dark liquid. Alex sat back down across from him, looking at him questioningly, her more R-rated thoughts fading away as she saw how miserable he looked.

"I've been thinking," he said tersely in that quiet, low voice of his, and his gaze faltered away, his brows knit together, his eyes scanned back and forth over the floor by his feet. He held the mug with two hands, his elbows rested on his knees. He finally looked back up at her in worried, earnest uncertainty. "Should we... should I marry you?"

Thunderstruck, Alex's jaw dropped. "W-what?" She literally sat back a little, as if the question had physically blown her backwards. Had she heard him right? "_Marry_?"

He seemed even more confused at her shocked reaction. "Isn't that... what you're supposed to do?" he asked. "Would it make things right?"

"Make _what_ things right?" she asked, aghast and caught off guard. Did he think because they'd had sex he was obligated to walk down an aisle with her…? She couldn't believe her ears at all. Cas looked sickened and resigned, his next statement blew her even further away. "Alex, I defiled you."

"W-what?" she stuttered out. Sam snorted a little, startling the couple—and they watched as Sam shifted, smacked his mouth in his sleep a couple times and settled back down. Alex leaned closer to Cas, speaking in a whisper now. "_Defiled_, Cas?"

He looked uncomfortable and reluctant, looked down at the black coffee mug in his hands. "I took your innocence. Your… purity."

Alex's eyebrows went high up. Oh _no_. No, no. She had to set him straight on this one. She looked at him like he was nuts. "Come _on _Cas. I'm not exactly the flowery princess from the storybooks. Have you _met_ me? I've ripped apart hundreds of things that go bump in the night. I've stolen, lied, cheated, killed…" she stopped, thought about it, the things she'd said sinking in. She shook her head slowly, staring into middle distance somewhere to the side of Cas. "I am _not_ innocent. I was never a 'pure soul'…" she looked at him again doubtfully. "How could I have been?"

"You were," he said. "And now… you're not." He seemed like he'd been thinking about it all night. "It's entirely my fault." He sounded very final and jaded and he sighed unhappily, then raised his mug up to his lips, tasted the coffee and frowned, made a face. "This tastes very awful."

Alex just stared at him, stunned, speechless, unsure of how to even begin to respond, a million and one thoughts swirling around in her mind. And then the motel door opened, in walked Dean, who looked tired, like he hadn't slept. The first thing he did was kick one of Sam's legs out from under him, tell him, "wake up, Gigantor." As Sam's eyes opened and he blinked, bleary eyed, fallen half over, Sam muttered "_Huh wha_?" and then protested with a complaining groan. "I _just _fell asleep."

Dean turned his attention to Cas. "When did you get back?" he asked, neither hostile or friendly. "A little bit ago," Castiel said vaguely. Alex eyes darted to Cas—she didn't miss the fact that Cas had just fibbed to Dean about how long he'd been there. Smart guy, she thought. Dean didn't catch the lie. He just crossed his arms, raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips. "You got the magic tree branch?" he asked expectantly.

"Yes," Cas said, and with a nod indicated the stake of wood that was on the coffee table.

"Okay, so who ventilates this bitch?" Dean asked, swaggering over to the stake, picking it up and turning it over in his hand, then looking at Cas. "Could the padre do it?"

"Pastor Gideon?" Sam asked for clarification, running a tired hand through his bedhead hair. "Yes. More than likely he's our only option," Cas agreed, standing up, coffee still in hand. And Alex watched him from where she still sat on the bed, thought how commonplace he looked right now, standing in the motel room holding a mug of coffee. He looked normal and everyday, like this could be him in the mornings. Every morning. And she was suddenly imagining him reading the paper and sipping at coffee and looking at her fondly across a table, where she'd be sitting with a bowl of cereal, wearing some pajamas. She didn't even own a pair, but maybe, someday, she would.

"All right, so go get him," Dean told Cas, a little rudely, and Alex's little daydream was interrupted. Patient as ever, Cas set his mug down on the coffee table. "I can't. The Whore is with him right now—I already checked." Cas was cautioning. "We'll have to be careful. Approach him when he's out of her grasp. If she finds out he knows… or that we know… it won't be good for anyone."

Dean looked displeased. "Great, so we sit around and twiddle our thumbs all day waiting."

"Yes, precisely," Cas replied, then added in, distractedly, "though the thumb twiddling is unnecessary."

"It's an _expression_, Cas." Dean said in a decidedly patronizing tone. And Alex, unable to tolerate his horrible attitude for another second gave him a dirty, annoyed look. "Could you be a little less of a dick, please?" she asked bitterly. "You're giving me a headache."

Dean's eyebrows raised in a falsely surprised expression. "Oh, am I?" Glibly, he swept his arm out, indicating the way out of the room. "Door's right there. If you don't like the conversation, feel free to see yourself out."

She stared him down—wounded, unsure how the hell he could be such a jerk to her, why he had to act that way—and trying to cover up her pain, she muttered something like "_fucking douchebag_" under her breath and took him up on his offer, surprising everyone when she left and slammed the door behind herself.

* * *

Alex sat on the back of the Impala, feet up on the trunk, arms wrapped around her legs. The sky was overcast and the air was chilly. The air carried a damp feeling with it, and the grey clouds overhead seemed heavy with rain that wasn't falling yet. She'd walked out a minute ago, was trying to calm down. She wanted to scream or hit something. She had never been _so frustrated_ with so many things and all at once. Dean, who was currently in first place for the dick of the year award. Cas, ambivalently proposing marriage because he apparently regretted having sex with her or… something. Sam—well, Sam actually was on her good side right now.

She took in a deep breath, closed her eyes, let the breath out. She remembered how sometimes, in the past—a past that seemed so simple and wonderful in comparison to the world now—sometimes Dean would park the car in the middle of nowhere, the three of them would sit on the hood and watch the stars silently. Throw back a beer or two. Usually nothing was said. Those used to be her favorite times, especially when she'd been mute. It had felt like the safest and best place in the world, when it was just them, the galaxies above, and a quiet, deserted country road. At those times, she'd known that she was with the only other two people in the world who knew what it was like to be her. They had all just gotten each other and everything had been okay. Dean sometimes nudged her, pointed out a shooting star or a planet, knowing it would make her smile. She opened her eyes, and there were warm, unshed tears filling her eyes. Where was _that_ Dean? Who was this angry, cagey, restless, hopeless man who was increasingly unrecognizable to her? Where was the older brother who used to crack a grin at her in the mornings and tell her '_mornin' sunshine,_' and call her _baby girl _and _sweetheart_ when she got down in the dumps? Where was the Dean who used to get upset if someone even looked at her mean? Why was he pushing her away like this?

She heard footsteps shuffling toward her and she knew it wasn't Dean—he marched—and it wasn't Sam—he loped. Cas. She turned her head slightly, and saw him. He came to a stop beside the trunk, beside her. She felt a little embarrassed about how she'd stormed out and sheepishly looked away from his gaze. "Are you all right?" Cas asked, and Alex attempted a smile as she looked down at her knees. It didn't work.

"I'm…" she trailed off. She _wasn't_ all right. Cas waited, Alex sobered, grew introspective. Shook her head and shrugged just slightly. "Dean wasn't always like that to me," she said, unsure how else to say it. She looked at him, despairing, but trying to be brave. "What is happening to him, Cas? To my family?" She chewed the inside of her cheek anxiously for a second as she looked away again, scowling at noting in particular. "I haven't even told them about what happened in Heaven."

"You mean seeing your father?" Cas prompted after a second and she half-nodded confirmation.

"I mean, even if I'd had the_ chance_—" Alex stopped short and soured. "I kind of don't even want to talk to Dean right now." She felt pure, unadulterated grief at how true that was and how true what she was about to say was. "I don't even want to _look _at him right now." She stared into far distance, at the closed diner across the street.

"I want to help you," Cas told her, and he sounded so heartfelt and sweet and unsure. "How _can_ I help you?" he asked. Touched and surprised, Alex softened, looked at him. Managed the beginnings of a smile when she saw how genuine he was. "I don't know. Maybe give Dean a personality transplant?" she rolled her eyes halfheartedly at her own joke, was surprised when his expression softened. "Actually," Alex started, paused, thought about it. "There_ is _something you could do for me."

"Of course," Castiel said immediately. "Whatever you wish."

Whatever she wished, huh? She pushed the more R-rated responses away from her mind, cleared her throat. She actually couldn't believe she was asking Cas to do this for her. "You uh, you could tell him for me? About Dad and what he said. I mean, I told you you everything, so… you just tell him what I told you."

"Of course," Cas repeated, nodding once, deeply. Then appearing to be rueful about something as his eyes looked into hers morosely. "Things must truly be different between Dean and yourself."

Alex looked at him uncertainly, unwrapped her arms from her legs. "What do you mean?"

"You used to tell him everything," Cas said simply, factually. And Alex remembered that Cas had watched over her for much longer than she usually gave thought to. Knew her life better than she thought he did. It made her feel strange. But he was right, and she nodded sadly, crossed her legs indian-style, shrugging her eyebrows up briefly in an ambivalent, defeated expression. "Yeah. Now I don't want to tell him _anything_." She couldn't even begin to put into words how upsetting that was to admit. So she pushed the thought away and looked at Cas, who stood there with his hands hanging at his sides, his shoulders slumped forward. She temporarily forgot about Dean and she smiled fondly at awkward-as-usual Cas, then patted the spot beside her on the trunk. "Sit with me Cas," she coaxed. "Don't just stand there like a telephone pole."

He looked a little uncertain, but complied, and his legs hung over the end of the car. And she stole a couple glances at him, watched him as he looked at some birds that had gathered on a telephone wire strung across the motel parking lot. Having him near was comforting and her guard was down, even though there were a billion questions she had about him and _them_. And she suddenly blurted out, "can angels even _get_ married?"

He frowned a little, his eyes drifting downward and into middle distance. "I'm not sure. I didn't think that far ahead." He looked at her sidelong, and she saw the guilt that he felt about everything. Guilt, or maybe worse, regret. "I just thought… it might fix it."

"I don't understand what there is to fix," Alex said softly, staring at her lap tensely, then looking at him, feeling the sadness return. "Do you really regret it that much?"

He didn't answer her directly, only looked away where she was staring at his profile. He bowed his head a little. "It hurt you."

"Not _that_ much," Alex said, and Cas looked up, gave her a look that said he knew she was basically lying. Alex saw how agonized he was over it, and tried to console him. "Cas, I'm fine. Pain is pain, you know? I'm used to pain." Well, that didn't make him feel better, his face just tightened even more. "Come on, you're the one with a supersized headache and a bullet wound in your chest," she tried humorously, and Cas looked even more defeated. Feeling a little tongue-tied, a little flushed, Alex bit her lip, looked down at her knee. "Cas, it's supposed to, to hurt the first time." He didn't seem to like that, either. But she wasn't finished. "And, I mean… after it hurt a little bit… it didn't hurt so much anymore. It was…" she was blushing now, cheeks and ears hot and turning red as she thought about it. "I, uh, I liked it," she finished clumsily, her eyes flickering around nervously, bashfully, unable to even believe what she was talking about. And Cas, who looked almost flustered himself, swallowed, looked her in the eyes in a way that seemed shy. "I liked it too," he told her as he looked down, then back up almost timidly. "Very much so."

And there on the trunk of the Impala for only birds on a telephone wire to see, an angel of Heaven and a twenty-seven-year-old hunter exchanged a shy smile—Cas appeared distinctly boyish when his mouth quirked up to one side in a little smile just for her, and unconsciously, Alex's cheek moved down toward her shoulder as she tried to suppress a smile—it was an action that made her appear demure and girlish. And both of them were quiet for a minute, together in a surprisingly comfortable, if mutually thrilled silence. Because despite all the adversity and inner turmoil they faced, they both realized that the other didn't regret what they'd done together, only regretted the difficult circumstances and unknown future and the impossible obstacles they faced.

Alex's thoughts gravitated back to earlier subject matter and she sobered a little, even though remnants of the smile Cas had inspired in her remained. "I'm not the marrying type, Cas," she told him, then halted. "Or at least, I don't think I am." She hadn't even really thought about it, honestly. She'd grown up just hoping someone would someday look at her twice—she hadn't even gotten to the wedding fantasies like most little girls did. And she didn't really think Cas was proposing traditional marriage anyway. She got that an angel was bound to think sex out of marriage was wrong or something… so this was him trying to make an honest woman out of her in the only way he knew how. And that was so endearing and thoughtful, even if he had it kind of wrong. She couldn't really take him seriously about the whole marriage thing, but it still spoke volumes of how much he cared, and led her to ask the question she'd been sitting on for a little while now. Asking it was scary, but not asking it would be worse. "Cas... did you ever stop to think maybe we're... I don't know. _Supposed_ to be together? Even if it's just for a few years?"

And the instant he looked at her, she knew he had. "But you'll die," he said softly. Alex wasn't fazed, she barely reacted; she'd expected him to say that. She knew that was the one guarantee in this life… a one way ticket to the end. "_Everyone_ dies, eventually," she told him softly. And he looked at her sadly. "Not me."

The motel door slammed just then, and Dean's gruff voice sounded off behind them. "Hey, get off my damn car," he said.

"Where are you going?" Alex asked anxiously, guardedly, seeing his jacket, his keys, and his moody expression as she slid off the back of the car. He barely looked at either of them. "To get some friggin' food," he replied, and slammed the car door, started the car, and drove off without any further anything. He wouldn't come back for hours and hours.

While Dean was missing in action and off who-knows-where, Cas, Alex, and Sam shared a strange, tense, distracted day, waiting for him to resurface. Cas checked a couple times on the pastor and each time returned, shaking his head no, that Leah was still with him.

In an effort to pass the time and keep their minds off of their own individual miseries, Sam and Alex taught Cas how to play poker. The angel seemed mildly reluctant to learn it, commenting that it was a sin… and then he thought about it for a second and gave an almost cynical chuckle, agreed to be taught. He did surprisingly well, winning a couple times to the amusement of the twins. He even seemed to like it once he learned the rules. Sometime toward noon, Alex fell asleep next to Cas as the three of them played another hand of cards. Her eyes blinked sleepily and head nodded down onto his shoulder and both men looked at her in surprise when that happened. Cas and Sam's eyes met—and Sam didn't say a word, just let it go. She slept for almost five hours there against Cas, who didn't move once, but did ask Sam a couple times if so much sleep in the middle of the day was normal for her. He was obviously worried about her state of exhaustion. And Sam thought that was sweet, but still felt a little weird about all of it. He tried to keep himself busy while Alex used Cas as a human, er, no, _angel _pillow—he read some books, made some notes, paced around, thought about going to find Dean, but decided to stay put.

Hours passed. Dean didn't return until near sundown, wouldn't tell them where he went, only demanded Cas go get the pastor.

* * *

"No," Pastor Gideon said, shaking his head for longer than needed. He sat across from Dean and Sam in the motel room. "She's my daughter."

"I'm sorry, but she's not," Dean said. "She's the_ thing_ that killed your daughter."

"That's _impossible_," the pastor told him immediately.

"It's not impossible," Alex told him somberly. She stood at the end of the couch, nearest to Sam. "Listen to your instincts, Padre." How many times had the Winchesters had this same conversation? With countless mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers who were struggling to accept that their loved one was a demon, was a creature, was a ghost. Pastor Gideon, who Cas had finally managed to catch when he was not with Leah, was putting a shaking hand to his face in grief and confusion.

Sam continued the line of reasoning Alex had started. "Deep down, you know it's not her," he told the pastor, whose face wrinkled up. He looked close to tears. "Look, we get it—" Sam said. "It's too much. But if you don't do this, she's going to kill a lot of people. And damn the rest to hell."

Dean picked up the stake and held it out the Pastor Gideon, who looked positively horrified. "It's just… why does it have to be _me_?" he asked. They'd already explained in detail, but he couldn't seem to accept any of it.

"You're a Servant of Heaven," Castiel said from where he leaned against the partition. Alex glanced at him. "And you're an _angel_," the pastor protested, turning around halfway to look at Cas.

"A poor example of one," he replied somberly, and his eyes flickered up to Alex, who heard what he said and seemed saddened by it. Dean, still holding the stake out to the padre, missed the significance of it. The padre turned back around and looked at the boys and their sister. It was like he was begging them to please, _please_, find someone else. Anyone else. "You're sure I'm the only one who can do this?" He asked.

"Yeah," Dean confirmed grimly, and the pastor looked away, put his face in his hands again. Dean looked at Sam, prompted him to say something with a jab of his hand. Sam gave Dean an impatient glance, but did what his brother wanted. "We don't have any other leads, Pastor Gideon. Everyone else here in town is falling apart," Sam gently pleaded. "You can save people tonight. A lot of people. Please."

The pastor looked at them again, hesitating, but appeared to be resigning himself, steeling himself. "She_ has_ been different," he told them wearily. "And today, she, she threatened me. Said she'd name me as the next sinner if I didn't shut up." He looked grieved, almost at the point of tears. "Leah would never do that. Not my baby girl. She would never." The broken way he said that last part sent a hush over the room. Maybe the pastor had known longer than he really realized. He looked at Sam, then Dean, his face a mask of torment. "What you're asking me to do is… insane—you boys understand that, right?"

"Believe me, Padre," Dean said heavily, his eyes glancing in his brother's direction. "More than you know." Sam looked a little startled, and Alex felt her eyebrows raise just slightly, then the twins exchanged a glance. "We'll be right there with you, okay?" Dean told the pastor.

"All right," the pastor agreed brokenheartedly, and took the stake up, looked at it sadly. "I'll do it. I'll do it."

Cas, who had been watching with a silent, conflicted expression, let out a heavy breath and walked out of the room, his hand to his head. Curious, Dean watched his back as he walked out of the motel room, then redirected his attention to the padre. "Great. Good. Listen, you take a few minutes, get yourself together."

Alex craned her neck, looking out the window even as Dean grabbed up the stake and followed after Cas. The angel was outside the motel, sitting on a bench in the neon cast of the motel lights, his hand on his head like he was in pain. "Whatcha doing out here, angel wings?" Dean asked, walking around to the back of his car and opening the trunk to put the stake in there.

"Trying to recover from a headache," Cas said irritably.

"Ah," Dean said, remembering what Sam had said about Cas being drunk or hung over. "Gotcha." He shut the trunk of the Impala, put his hands in his pockets and walked up to the driver's side of the car, leaned there. Looked at Cas long and hard, reluctant to admit how much he owed the guy. But he knew he needed to thank him, that Cas deserved at least that much. Even if Dean didn't like it and was pretty damn convinced that the angel was bad news for Alex overall, today the guy had been the difference between her being alive or not.

Dean cleared his throat. "So listen," he said grudgingly. "I owe you big time. I know that. And I'm… just… thanks. I don't think I can ever make it up to you."

Cas's hands were now loosely clasped in front of him, he didn't really seem to hear Dean at all. "Dean," he said lowly. "There's something I need to tell you."

Oh _shit._ Dean was suddenly filled with a horrible foreboding feeling, he just _knew_ Cas was gonna open his mouth and say he was in love with Alex. Voice lowering in caution and forewarning, Dean looked at Cas dangerously. "_What._"

And then Cas said the furthest thing from what Dean had expected. "Alex saw your father in Heaven."

Dean almost did a double take, his glare falling away. "Uh, what?"

"When she first died, when she became aware of herself in Heaven... your father appeared," Cas explained levelly, not looking at Dean, just staring ahead of himself.

"What, like some kinda hallucination?" Dean asked, beside himself in surprise.

"No," Cas replied. "It was him. Contacting her from across the veil somehow."

Dean wet his lips and held out a finger. "Okay, wait, wait, _wait_. Hold on." He was getting exasperated. "How do you even _know_—and why the hell are _you_ telling me this, not _her_?"

Cas, unaffected by Dean's rising temper and voice, remained matter-of-fact. "She asked me to tell you, in her stead."

"And why the hell would she do _that_?!" Dean demanded explosively.

Cas finally looked up at him, his gaze sad almost. "Dean, consider it. Would you allow anyone else to speak to her the way that _you _have been?" Those words shocked Dean into stillness and absolute silence. Cas looked away, continued. "She's upset with you, I believe."

Dean just stood there lamely. Cas's question and subsequent comment had left him dismayed. "That's beside the point," Cas said, oblivious to or ignoring Dean's shocked reaction. "He warned her, Dean. He was cut off before he could tell her everything, but he said... '_tell Dean it's not over, that the danger isn't gone, that Azazel planned to use you and Sam to—_'"

Dean was hanging onto every word in rising terror. "To what?" he asked anxiously, and Cas shook his head, looking disturbed at a deep level and no longer meeting Dean's gaze. "That's the question," he said, frowning again into far distance.

This was _nuts_. "Okay, even if that was my dad, even if—I mean Azazel is _dead_!" Dean protested vehemently. "Haven't heard from the bastard in years, I'm pretty sure it's over with!"

"Can we really take that chance?" Cas looked up at Dean dubiously. His loud anger faded away at the quiet and reasonable question. Dean maintained a grim and thoughtful silence for a minute—could this have happened at a _better frigging time_? The threat of the apocalypse hounding him day and night, the angels after himself and Sam, finding out Alex had no heaven, catching her and Cas freaking cuddling on the floor after he'd come back from Heaven—all of that plus having seen 2014… you know, maybe the apocalypse and saying yes to Michael was a pretty good alternative to _that _whole mess he'd witnessed. Tired and defeated and short on answers, Dean found himself looking to Cas for a solution, even though it made him uncomfortable. He looked at Cas in hesitant hopefulness. "You always know about this stuff, Cas. Do you know what my dad could have been talking about?"

Cas shook his head dismally. "No. If there was some plan, it's been kept secret from Heaven."

"Well how do we find out?" Dean asked. "I mean, how the hell did Dad even manage to get a message through to begin with?"

"I don't know," Cas said. He sounded like he was taking it hard, personal even. "I don't know anything."

Dean set his jaw, thought of how disappointed Dad would be. The thought of his father still out there somewhere, suffering and worried about the family and possibly knowing about some danger Dean had overlooked—he almost felt choked. Dean shook his head in bitter disgust at himself and his circumstance. "I always told myself I'd keep them safe, Cas. Look at me. I let them both get shot to death two days ago."

"I should have been watching over the three of you more closely," Cas said. Then let out a heavy, guilty-sounding huff. "Or at all."

Dean suddenly recognized something in Cas that he carried, too: that deep, undying feeling of responsibility for everything bad that happened to the ones he was responsible for. And that fact alone made him feel sorry for the angel. Dean looked down at the concrete beneath his feet. He felt incredible, resistant sadness filling him up as he thought about the message Cas had relayed about Dad. "I just... I was always so happy because I thought we dodged a bullet," he said softly, hollowly. "That Al sidestepped the whole 'demon's got a plan for your life' tango. That was supposed to just be _Sam_."

Again, Cas gave him a hooded glance. "If what your father said is true, we can't be too careful."

He was right. The nerdy little angel dude was right. Dean shut his eyes for a second, felt his stress level skyrocket. But besides that, he felt such deep, intense regret. Cas shouldn't be the one telling him this. It should be Alex. And instead of infuriating him, it made him surprisingly emotional. He just wished she would have told him herself. Maybe he'd pushed her and Sam further away than he'd thought or noticed. And Cas was right—Dean would sure as hell beat up any asshole who said even half of the shit he'd said to her lately.

As if tuning into his thoughts, Cas looked at him empathetically. "You're under a lot of stress, Dean. I know."

Dean attempted a smirk, a chuckle, as he kept his eyes on the ground, walked forward toward the bench. "That's putting it pretty damn lightly, Cas."

He let out a deep breath, sat down beside Cas and leaned heavily on his knees. He got a slightly surprised look from the angel. "Listen. I've been... sorta, out of my mind a little lately," Dean said. "Ya know, at first I find out I'm Michael's vessel—okay, I can deal with that. But then I find out Sam's Lucifer's vessel... and friggin' see the future where he's being worn to the prom, where Alex is dead... you're some cynical bastard with no hope left... I mean, all because I wouldn't say yes." Dean looked at Cas, full of doubt and uncertainty. "I need you to level with me Cas. Should I really keep trying to ditch out of it? If _that's _what happens?"

Cas thought about it deeply, his brows knit together closely. "I used to believe that it wasn't possible to change the future. But I think... I hope... that I was wrong about that." He paused. "Do I think you should say yes to Michael? No. There's too much at risk, too much to lose."

Not really what Dean wanted to hear. Well, he wasn't sure what he wanted to hear. All of it sucked, and he felt even more hopelessness settle over him. "Can I really just keep saying no forever?" he asked. He honestly didn't think so. "They're gonna start coming after everything I've got. It's only a matter of time."

Cas looked at him with a dark, concerned expression. "I know, Dean. I'll help in whatever way I can." He let out a tired sigh, looked out at the motel parking lot. "I know that your burden feels impossible," Cas said. "But you can't give up."

For some reason, that seemed pretty rich coming from Cas. In fact, it almost sounded like Cas had already given up. "Buddy, aren't you preachin' to the choir?" Dean asked. "You find out God doesn't care and you go off and drink a whole building full of booze and now you're sitting here with a hangover the size of Mongolia looking depressed as hell... doesn't take a genius to figure out you feel as shitty and hopeless as I do."

"It's the headache," Cas said in a distracted, bad-tempered tone, and Dean, muttering "sure" got up and went to the car, reached in and grabbed a bottle of aspirin.

"Heads up." He tossed the bottle to Cas, who caught it and looked at the label glumly. "How many should I take?"

"You? You should probably just down the whole bottle."

"Thanks," Cas said stoically.

"Yeah, don't mention it." Dean looked at Cas from the corner of his eye, felt a surprising amount of empathy for the guy, was reminded of how much he had helped, already. He knew the reason Cas was suffering from a hangover from hell. "Hey, I've been there," he told the angel. "I'm a big expert on deadbeat dads." He shook his head, again wondering about Alex seeing Dad in heaven, wondering how traumatic that had to be for her. He still didn't like that she'd told all of that to Cas and been seeking comfort from his arms—but maybe Dean's crappy attitude had pushed her there. He would get to the bottom of all of that, later. Right now just wasn't the time. He refocused on Cas, who looked miserable. "So… yeah, anyway. I get it. I know how you feel, and it sucks."

Cas looked up at him and suddenly seemed really young and helpless to Dean. "How do you manage?"

Dean smirked a little. "Well, on a good day, you get to kill a whore." At Cas's less-than-amused expression, Dean rolled his eyes, sighed. "Oh, loosen up, Cas. Live a little." He straightened. "I'll be back with the rest of the gang in a minute or two. Don't go anywhere." Even as he went inside, he passed Alex, who was coming out and shrugging a jacket on over her hoodie. Dean looked at her appraisingly, but she avoided looking at him. She shut the door behind herself, and it was just her and Cas out in the chilly night.

"You okay?" she asked him as she approached, hands in the pockets of her jacket. Seeing that it was her, he stood up, seeming startled to see her. He looked down at the pill bottle that he held in his hand. "Dean told me to take the whole bottle." She followed his gaze to the bottle. "Headache still?" she surmised.

"Unfortunately," he said, his eyes capturing hers completely. They hadn't spoken much all day, even though they'd been together most of the time. Sam had been there, or she'd been asleep. And even though they'd reached some kind of truce there on the trunk of the Impala, there was still a lot tension and unspoken things—for Alex, anyway.

"I told Dean," Cas said, slipping his hands into his trench coat pockets, his stance mirroring hers. "What you asked me about."

Her eyebrows raised a little. "How'd he take it?"

Cas thought a minute. "He's… overwhelmed."

"Yeah," Alex said, almost smirking to herself. _Overwhelmed_ came with the job description of hunter. And after last night and all of the confused, jumbled emotions it had come with… Alex was overwhelmed, too. "I get that," she said. And she knew she'd have to play question-answer later with Dean, but for now, she felt relieved that Cas had taken care of that for her. She looked at the angel carefully, tried to figure out how Cas was feeling—he seemed pretty down. "And you?" she prompted. "How are you—really?"

He looked unsure of how to answer, had to mentally search for the answer. After a minute, he seemed to decide. "I'm overwhelmed, too," he said. His eyes held unfathomable amounts of pain, conflict, emotion. And she found herself remembering when she first met him, how emotionless he'd seemed, how unreachable—there was such a startling difference between that Castiel and this one. Hell, she never would have guessed in a million years that this would happen. That the angel in the trench coat—the one she'd shot at the first time she laid eyes on him—would be the one she'd give her virginity to. But no matter what she would have guessed or not guessed, it had happened. And there was no taking it back, ever.

"Listen," she said, voice lowering, her eyes searching his. "I've been thinking about, um, last night." His jaw tightened for a second at the mention of it. "And I just don't want you to regret it," Alex told him emphatically, raising her shoulders up bravely. "Because... I don't." His expression flickered, she couldn't tell if he was touched by her statement or bothered by it. "Do you?" she asked.

"It's not…" he trailed off, anxious and tense. "It's not that simple."

Alex stepped a little closer to him, looking up into his eyes. "I'm gonna die someday Cas," she told him bluntly. "I accepted that a long time ago." She knew if she wanted a clear answer, she had to be clear about where she stood. But her heart hammered up into her throat, and she was almost afraid to lay it on the line. The risk of rejection was so very great. But she saw no other option. She was at the point of begging and didn't have enough pride to stop herself. And maybe it was selfish or naive but it was how she felt. "And I… I'd rather live a few years more and be with you than anything else." She said it out loud and realized how much she meant it, felt her eyes sting with emotion.

"Alex…" he spoke her name softly, became agonized and looked away, unable to bear the talk about her dying, about her valuing a few years with him over a long life otherwise. "I mean it," she told him, getting emotional. And he shut his eyes closed for a second, his brows knit together, his expression so mournful. "I know you do." And he opened his eyes back up.

Their eyes met silently and Alex hung all her hope on what she said next. "So that leaves it all up to you, Cas," Alex said, trying valiantly to smile through her shining eyes. "What do we do now?"

His eyes slid up to hers slowly, and he looked afraid. "I am not going to let you die, Alex," he said, his voice full of intention and promise. "In two-thousand thirteen or any other year." And she thought that meant he was going to leave her now, that he was going to walk away in order to save her—and her heart sank. But then he touched the side of her face, his eyes softened, locked on hers. "I'll find a way to change it," he said with no shortage of great emotion. "If it's the last thing that I do." And she was stunned when he reached for her decisively and circled an arm around her waist, when he leaned down and kissed her in an achingly gentle way, when held his hand against her face tenderly. Her eyes fell shut, she melted into his embrace even as a warm, amazed tear spill down her cheek.

Inside the motel, Dean shoved some bottled holy water into his duffel bag—never hurt to be on the safe side—then he promptly froze when he glanced up at the window and saw Cas and Alex. He could have fallen over from the shockwave the sight sent through him. He felt all the blood drain out of his face even as the air in the room seemed to disappear. Son of a _bitch_!

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ I apologize that this chapter took so long to publish. I had a horrible week or two (I forgot now, it all runs together) and had to take care of some pretty intense family crisis stuff. Everything's fine now but lemme tell you, I could sure use some hugs :'( I'm glad I have SRS… it's my therapy! Anyway_

_OMG DEAN SAW THEM KISSSSSS—cue Castiel's murder in 3, 2, 1… lol. _

_MAN this chapter was an insane emotional rollercoaster for me to write. It's so draining and all-consuming to write so many feelings and thoughts but I LOVE IT. You wouldn't believe how much time and obsession goes into SRS. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter… Let me know your favorite part(s) and of course feel free to swoon with me over Cas taking a bullet for Alex. *cries softly* I just… SAM FEELS… CAS FEELS… ALEX FEELS… DEAN FEELS… helppppPPP MEeeeEEeeE!_

_Also, I am so amazed that this story has now gotten over 400 follows and 300 favorites! You guys are amazing! I am sooo humbled and amazed! Waahhh! *blows kisses*_


	33. Mr Self Destruct

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 33 / Mr. Self Destruct

"_Dad, your boy's about to fall, he walks the razor's edge. He's on the brink of fading out, he's at his bitter end.__"  
_- The Juliana Theory

* * *

Son of a _bitch_! Dean Winchester almost had a stroke right then and there. He vaguely heard something drop—whatever he'd been holding (he didn't remember). His internal alarm was blaring at a deafening volume, all he could hear was that and the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears. For a single, horrible moment, he could only stare at the sight before him. He was shocked, _completely_ shocked.

Under the flickering neon light of the motel sign, Castiel was_ kissing _Alex. The two of them were close, _too_ close, it almost looked like Alex was_ inside _the damn trench coat—the angel had a hand cupped against her face, his free arm was wrapped around her waist pulling her flush against him, she rested her hands on his chest as Cas pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. The worst part of the entire sight, for Dean, was how unspeakably intimate and loving the embrace was. He couldn't think of any instance in his life where he'd seen a kiss quite like that one, hell, _he'd _never kissed a woman like that—and there was just something so frightening about that to Dean. Maybe because the way Alex leaned into Cas, it looked like she belonged to him. Maybe it was because of how Cas held her in a way that seemed reverent, worshipful even. And that's when Dean realized what he found so disturbing about it: they looked like two people in love.

"_Don't let it happen. Trust me. They'll undo each other. Destroy each other._" The words that Dean of 2014 had told him echoed through his head violently and loudly. The shock was fading fast into anger, but more than just anger there was a deep and clawing dread, a sudden horrified fear that it was _too late, _that all of his suspicions had been so much more true than he had dared to think_. _And Dean suddenly found himself remembering what that damn cupid had said to him. "_Like it or not Dean, some things are just meant to be!_" No. Not _this_! It _couldn't _happen—for a million and one reasons, but most of all because it got his baby sister killed in the end. And the frigging irony wasn't lost on Dean: that Alex's guardian angel—the dude who was supposed to _protect_ her—was knowingly doing something that would land her six feet under.

And Dean felt like something snapped in him. How dare that angel bastard? Cas knew, he _knew_ that them being together or involved or whatever was what got Alex killed in the end and he was still out there, kissing her in the most invested and romantic way Dean had ever seen anyone kiss _anyone_. His stomach turned. "_Think about it, Dean," _Cas had said to Dean recently. _"I don't feel things the way you feel them. I'm not human. I'm incapable of… that._"

_Incapable my ass, you fucking liar. _That damn angel had all but sworn to Dean that he wouldn't let himself and Alex end up together, that he'd 'do anything' to prevent it from happening. Righteous anger and something like hatred coursed through Dean's veins as he watched the angel and his sister part, watched Cas take both of her hands in his, watched them look at each other in silence with indescribable, soft expressions on their faces.

Dean's fists were clenched, his nostrils were flared, his blood was boiling, and he couldn't just stand there anymore. He stormed out of the motel, not even bothering to close the door behind him, just flinging it open in a fit of rage, startling his sister and the angel. Alex backpedaled toward the Impala, letting go of Cas's hands and looking at her brother in almost fear—Cas looked at him sternly—but Dean was too busy charging into the space between them to care or notice. Dean grabbed Alex roughly by her upper arm, forcefully propelling her toward the back door of the Impala. "_Ouch_, Dean!" she protested, sounding surprised as she tried to pull her arm away.

He only gripped harder. "Just _get in the damn car_!" He thundered, staring down at her with a murderous glare. She stared up at him in complete shock and fear, and maybe any other time knowing he'd made her afraid would have upset Dean, but _today_? Today he _wanted_ her to be scared, he wanted her to _wake up_, because what she was doing with Cas, whatever the hell it was—was dangerous and she_ should_ be scared. He hadn't saved her ass all these times over the years and kept her safe to watch her throw her life away. Behind him, he heard Cas take a step closer. "Dean, what are you doing?" the angel asked, his question a mixture of genuine uncertainty and warning. Dean's skin crawled at the sound of that voice and he turned slowly, craning his neck over his shoulder to look the jackass in the face. Dean's expression was challenging, his voice was low and menacing. "Does this_ look_ like any of your business, Cas?"

Cas's face darkened, he stepped closer. There was no mistaking the threatening tone in his deep voice. "Let go of your sister, Dean."

Dean did just that, so that he could turn around to face Cas straight on, get in his face. He was shaking his head, barely containing his wrath. "You got some damn nerve, Cas…" he said, and the image of Cas kissing Alex flashed through his mind and he remembered 2014 and his voice raised to an unrestrained roar. "I thought I could_ trust_ you!" he shouted accusingly and grabbed Cas's lapels as hard as he could. Cas looked unperturbed at the physical assault—his face only registered guilt, which only made Dean want to pummel him into the ground more. Sam appeared in the doorway, just in time to witness what happened next.

Alex grabbed onto Dean sort of uselessly, tried to pull him away from Cas. "Stop it Dean!" Angry and riled past the point of clear thought, her brother threw his arm out, pushing her away a little rougher than he meant to. Alex was sent stumbling back toward the Impala from the force of the push. Cas's face went cold when Alex thudded up against the side of the car, and Dean realized he probably shouldn't have done that—but he didn't have a chance to say or do anything else. He was picked up by the shoulders like he weighed nothing and sent flying into the side of the motel where he collided back-first and then fell forward onto all fours. _Jesus Christ, that was gonna leave a mark. _"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Dean heard Sam shouting. Dazed, he looked up to see that Cas had gone to Alex, was touching her on either arm like he was checking to see if she was okay or not, then sending Dean a scalding, shocked, revolted glare, as if to ask 'how _dare_ you?'— "What the hell is going on here?" Sam demanded, looking from Alex and Cas to Dean, his expression a cross between angry and shocked. Dean, who was picking himself up off the ground and more pissed off than ever at Cas, looked at his brother with a venomous glare as he vigorously dusted off his arms. "That's what I wanna _friggin' know_!"

Dean noticed the pastor was standing just outside the motel door and looking at the four of them in shocked uncertainty, holding the stake idly. Sam seemed aware of it too, glanced at Alex and Cas, then looked at Dean, lowered his voice. "Dean, now is _not_ the time for this." Dean looked at his brother in disbelief, his eyes narrowing. "You _knew _about this, Sam?" he asked, because there was a certain knowing look in Sam's eye. His younger brother's face registered guilt, and he sidestepped answering the question. "Dean—come on. We have a job to do right now."

Dean felt hot anger pumping through his veins. "Forget it," he spat in disgust, and then gave a facetious little smile, looking at his brother, sister, and the angel, barely able to contain how much rage he was feeling at the moment. "You know what. You're right. Let's go kill something—" the smile fell away coldly, "before I murder one of you instead." Dean made his jacket snap sharply with the force in which he straightened it, his face twisted into an acidic scowl, and he proceeded to avoid looking anyone in the eye. "Everyone just get in the damn car already so we can get this over with," Dean barked, already on his way over to the Impala, too angry to think straight.

"No," Cas said, startling everyone.

"_No_?" Dean repeated, frozen with his hand on the car door handle, an incredulous, angry look on his face. Cas's expression was every bit as rigid and angry as Dean's, and even Alex was looking at him with surprise. "We'll meet you there," Cas said with a deep finality that didn't leave any room for argument, his eyes hard on Dean's.

And Dean opened his mouth to tell him he sure as hell better not even think about—but Cas put a hand on Alex's shoulder and suddenly the two of them vanished into thin air, leaving Dean to stare, shocked into silence—but only for about two seconds. "_Son of a bitch_!"

* * *

They arrived across from the tiny old church, on the darkened sidewalk—the light in the church steeple cast a soft glow into the foggy night and a few street lamps dotted the road in either direction, misty halos floating in the air every twenty feet. Alex seemed a little disoriented as Cas took his hand off her shoulder, came to stand in front of her, peered at her intently, concerned, unable to believe how carelessly and roughly Dean had shoved her aside a minute ago. "Are you all right?" he asked her, trying to catch her gaze.

"I'm f—I'm fine," she said unsteadily, and she was looking down, her eyebrows were moved together—she seemed shaken up and he reached out to her and was shocked when she flinched a little, looked up at him with wide, uncertain, and unmistakably frightened eyes. And Cas ceased to move, shocked at her reaction—and he took in her elevated breathing, the expression on her face, the tense way she held her body.

She was scared, and his protective instincts skyrocketed. "Did your brother frighten you?" he asked, trying to come closer to her, but again she looked at him with wide, afraid eyes, she seemed to think about stepping back from him—and his stomach felt like it dropped. "_I _frightened you," he said as he realized it, horrified—remembering this was how she'd looked at him in the beginning, when she hadn't trusted him. A dismal feeling settling over him at the realization that his impulsive, violent reaction to Dean's outburst had scared her. He thought hard, fast, trying to rationalize what he'd done, understand it, even. All he'd seen was Dean push Alex too hard and Cas had felt such impossibly large amounts of indignant anger. He struggled to understand, looked at Alex for an answer. "Did I... overreact?"

Her expression changed, softened a little, her eyebrows raised up a little. "Maybe a little?" she replied, both a question and an answer, like she wasn't sure, either. She then attempted a little smile, maybe trying to reassure him or herself—he didn't know. Alex's smile faded, she looked down, distressed. "It just surprised me, and he hit the motel _so hard_—" she trailed off and Cas felt a clear sense of mortification. He _had_ overreacted. He shouldn't have thrown Dean so hard, he should have thought before he'd taken action.

"I'm sorry," he told Alex earnestly, struggling to understand his actions, her reaction, his feelings and motivation. "I thought he hurt you and I… I acted. Without thinking." He looked down, becoming miserable as he thought about the irony of what he was about to tell her—because it seemed so foolish to say when he was endangering her by choosing to be close to her. But it was the truth, it was all he'd ever tried to do. "I was trying to protect you."

When he said that, Alex came closer to him, touched his forearm, and he looked up at her again, torn. "I know you were," she told him, then she looked at her hand, examining his arm, maybe thinking of how that arm she grasped wasn't his at all, or hadn't always been. She'd grown quieter. "I just… sometimes I forget. How strong you are." Her eyes raised to meet his, and he saw a quiet sadness there, an uncertain, scared vulnerability. "How different you and I are from each other."

Cas felt as if the sadness in her eyes reached out and brushed up against him, leaving an ache somewhere beneath his ribs. He had known that for a long time, how very different they were. He knew it better than she did. Still, hearing her say it, knowing that she realized it too… left him feeling closer to her somehow, instead of further away.

He thought back to the time when he'd measured the distance between them in the space of his mind. He thought back to the time when he'd watched her for that silent year before he'd obtained his vessel. He'd always known, especially then, that they were from separate worlds and different realms. In the beginning he hadn't imagined or thought that would ever change—he had been incorporeal light and Grace, totally separate and removed from humanity—above it, watching with interest and fondness but no real connection to the people who inhabited the earth. And Castiel had viewed himself as just another guardian angel charged with watching over a human—only, he had discovered that this one wasn't quite like the others. He'd known, increasingly, that this one, this Alex Winchester, was different. He'd been drawn to her and protective of her by instinct—she'd always seemed small and vulnerable to him, worthy of safeguarding. Deserving of her voice. And even back then, when he had been nothing but a flash of light in her peripheral vision, when she'd been impossible for him to reach out and touch—even then she'd called forth reactions and instincts out of him that nothing else and _no one_ else ever had.

Just like today. When he'd seen her oldest brother push her away roughly—it had triggered something in him, and he'd lost his mind for the space of two seconds—it had made Cas remember the time Sam struck her and how _he'd done nothing to stop it_, remember how she flinched away from her father and how _he was powerless to change that_, remember the horrible, shocked pain _he himself had made her cry out in_ when they had been in the Vatican, together. Maybe it was because of those things, of those times he had let her get hurt, been unable to stop her from being hurt, or hurt her _himself _that Cas had felt so much protective rage well up. Maybe that was why he'd so readily thrown Dean against the motel without even thinking.

He reflected with a great amount of discomfort how emotional and unstable he had become—he was piloted by how he _felt_, he gave in to everything he felt good or bad, at the cost of the Winchester family, at the cost of Alex. Perhaps this was all a huge mistake—could he really take the chance on her life? What if he couldn't find a way to change her future?

"Cas? What is it?" Alex asked, and he came out of the fog of his thoughts, saw her looking up at him, her eyebrows pressing in together slightly, her eyes searching his. And as he thought of how beautiful she was, the same place hurt again beneath his ribs. He had no _choice_ but to change her future—he wouldn't leave her, no, he _couldn't _leave her. He'd meant what he told her earlier: He would find a way to change the future, to save her, even if it took everything he had. He looked at her, the memory of her giving herself to him so overpowering and overwhelming, leaving him awash in disbelief that she had _wanted _him like that, had_ trusted _him like that, had _given_ that to him, had taken him to a place deserving of the name paradise. Feeling too many emotions to bear, he took her hands again, holding onto the warm, small fingers, speechless. And he thought of her thudding against the car again, he thought of John Winchester pushing her around when she was younger and he shook his head, feeling agonized. "Dean shouldn't be rough with you like that."

Her eyes lowered a little, there was no disguising that she _was_ upset about it. "He never _has_ been before," she said faintly. "I think… I think it was an accident." She paused, their eyes met. He hoped it was.

"Listen," Alex said, her voice was soft and introspective. "Dean can be a huge douchebag sometimes. But he's _my_ huge douchebag. At the end of the day, he's my big brother. He's not perfect. Far from it." She paused, her lips curved up lopsidedly into something like a reluctant, if fond, smile. "Very far from it. If I was strong enough I probably would have thrown him against a building, too." Her little smile faded, she thought hard. "My point is, he can be a pretty horrible person to be around sometimes but… his heart's in the right place." She sounded weary and grudging about what she said, like she accepted it but at the same time didn't like it. "He's just... trying in the only way he knows how to keep me safe."

Cas looked at her, feeling a surge of concern. The same could be said for _him_. That he was just attempting to keep her safe the only way he knew how. He looked down at their hands, saw how their fingers intwined. Alex's fingers tightened in Cas's. "He can't know Cas, about… what we did. Together. In the library."

Cas brushed a thumb over her knuckles, his eyes came up to hers slowly. "I know." She seemed physically affected by those two words, or maybe it was the touch—he saw her chest rise and fall faster than before, her eyes flickered back and forth between his.

"He wouldn't understand," she told him, her voice softening in volume but rising slightly in pitch as her expression grew more emotional.

"I know," Cas told her.

"He's probably gonna try to kill you right now as it is," she said, then paused, the slightest amount of reluctant amusement flitting across her face. "_Try _being the operative word." She looked down at their hands, her fingers loosened a little, she seemed to grow somber and slightly distressed, deeply thoughtful. "I'm sorry Cas."

"For what?" He asked, and she looked up at him again, upset. He could see how much so by the way her forehead was tense and wrinkled, her brow furrowed, her mouth held tensely. What she said stunned him. She shook her head, looked up and away, seemed guilty and troubled. "I got you kicked out of Heaven… got you shot today trying to protect me… got you in trouble for giving me my voice back…" her eyes came back to him. "You never _did _tell me much about that." She sounded like she was concerned and curious, hesitant to ask it directly. And Cas didn't want her to know what he had lost to give her the ability to speak. If she felt guilty for it now, without knowing, she couldn't know the full story. "Anyway," she said wearily, "I guess what I'm trying to say is that all I've ever done is mess you up. And I'm sorry. I just... I don't like seeing you in pain or having a hard time."

Cas was shocked to hear that she thought she was to blame for any of those things, and he quickly corrected her, feeling almost hurt that she could assume she bore any guilt in any of those circumstances. "Alex, those things happened because of _my_ choices." He paused. "I don't regret them." He tightened his grip on her hands, thinking maybe he could convey how precious she was to him, how blameless she was in all of this. How he would do it all again without question or hesitation. "None of those things are your fault."

Her eyes were dark and full, catching the light off the church steeple. "Are you sure about that?" she asked him quietly.

"Yes," he replied without hesitation.

The immediacy of his response seemed to startle her a little bit. She blinked twice, rapidly, her lips parted softly. She stared at him with eyes that were soft and filled with some kind of disbelief or wonder. Every part of him responded to the sight of her so vulnerable and trusting there in front of him. And even as she was stepping forward to him, he was circling his arms around her in a gentle hug. He felt her arms around him, inside the trench coat, felt her head nestled against his shoulder. He could feel her breathe, could feel the warmth of her against him. His eyes closed without him meaning for them to.

And he thought of how he was of Heaven and she was of earth, how he was immortal and she was not, how they were not supposed to be pursuing each other the way they were. He thought of all the insurmountable things that stood against them. But however powerful the forces of fate and destiny were… the connection he shared with this girl, the incomparable and growing relationship between them, the things he felt for her and thought about her… these things were more powerful than anything else.

And he wanted to believe what he was thinking, what he had been considering ever since he had first kissed her, back in the panic room all those months ago. His eyes opened. "Maybe it doesn't matter," he told her in a slow, thoughtful way. He frowned to himself as he thought about it.

"What doesn't?" She asked, confused at his sudden statement, drawing back from the hug enough to be able to look up at him. Their hands rested on either side of the other's waist. "That we're different from each other," he told her, feeling uncertain about how he was phrasing himself. The words felt clumsy and thick in his mouth. "I don't… it doesn't change anything. About how I…" he couldn't finish the sentence, he didn't really know how to say it or if he _should_. He suddenly felt unworthy, like telling her what he thought of her would be comparable to presenting dirty table scraps to a queen. Alex waited anxiously, appearing to be frozen and breathless. "About how you what, Cas?"

Cas opened his mouth to reply—then paused when Alex turned, hearing something. He heard it too—the approaching roar of a car. Headlights sliced through the darkness, swinging around the closest street corner with a giant lurch. "Geez," Alex commented darkly under her breath, pulling out of Cas's arms as she muttered something about "speed demon." The Impala was streaking through the night toward them at record speed, and most assuredly with it came the wrath of Dean. Cas felt his mood darken measurably.

The car jerked to a halt across the street from them, right in front of a sign that said_ NO PARKING ANY TIME_. Dean got out immediately, his expression screwed up in anger as he stared Cas down and slammed the car door closed vigorously. No doubt Dean was angry that Cas had transported Alex away so abruptly, but Cas didn't wither under the oldest Winchester's angry stare like he might have in the past. He only gazed back unwaveringly—he didn't require Dean's permission to remove Alex from volatile situations.

Dean looked at Alex and Cas standing there across the street on the sidewalk. They were standing close, shoulders touching, and they both looked at him mistrustfully—and Cas, okay, he could deal with getting that look from him, but Alex, too? _What the hell!_ Why the fuck was Cas acting like Alex needed protection from _him_? He was her oldest brother for crying out loud! This was just ridiculous. Dean barely registered the sound of Sam and the pastor getting out of the Impala; all he could do was steam in incredulous anger. On the way over here as he'd run every single stop sign and the one red light, Dean had been trying to figure out what the hell to do, how to _deal _with this situation, how to knock some _sense_ into his sister and get that friggin' angel to _back off_. He had no clue how to accomplish either of those things, he didn't know _what to do—_and when Dean Winchester didn't know what to do, he wasn't happy. And when he wasn't happy... _no one_ was gonna be happy.

"What, you two gonna stand there all day or are we gonna gank this bitch?" Dean demanded of the angel and his sister. He watched with rising blood pressure as they glanced at each other, as if _checking_ with one another, seeing what the other one wanted to do. And then Cas led the way over slowly, Alex trailing beside him and slightly behind—and Dean watched them with a slack-jawed expression, feeling something between horrified and scared shitless as he tried to figure out when this had happened, how long it had been going on. Since when was Alex so damn submissive to someone? What had Cas _done_ to her to make her that way? "You okay, pastor?" he heard Sam ask behind him as two car doors shut one right after the other.

"Yeah just... a little carsick," the pastor said, sounding unwell. "_Yeah_," Sam's voice replied, and Dean knew the sassy attitude was pointed directly at him. "Me too."

Dean turned and looked at his brother balefully. He wasn't apologizing for driving fast and crazy. "_Shut up_," he said. Sam gave him one of those faces he saved for when he thought Dean was being a tool and he disapproved. "Bite me," Dean retorted in reply to his brother's unspoken condemnation. The pastor looked at Dean in growing uncertainty.

Dean turned his attention back to Cas, who was standing a few feet off in front of him, with Alex beside him—she should be beside _Dean_, not Cas and he almost reached out and yanked her away from the angel, then thought twice about it—he'd gotten a pretty solid reminder of how strong Cas was. And Dean decided it was better not to get thrown at something again. So he gritted his teeth, willing himself to stay calm, just _get this job done_. It was one of the hardest things he'd ever done, being civil to Cas when he wanted to punch him in the face. But still, Dean somehow managed. For now. "Alright, Cas, _buddy_," he said with a great amount of sarcasm and restraint. "Why don't you shazam yourself in there and do us some recon, huh? Find out where the Whore is?"

Cas appeared reluctant at Dean's suggestion… maybe because it wasn't actually a suggestion. The angel glanced over and down at Alex—who gave him a nod so subtle it was almost unnoticeable. _Almost_. And with one final terse glance at Dean, Cas disappeared from beside Alex. Dean was irate all over again. "Got the boyfriend trained pretty good, don't you?" he jeered, unable to bite back an angry, sarcastic comment. He was even angrier when his sister didn't respond to the bait, just ignored him except for rolling her eyes, clenching her jaw, and crossing her arms. She wouldn't look at him.

"Uh, no one has even told me how exactly we're going to… to do this," the pastor said hesitantly, and Dean wheeled, realized that in his rage he had sort of forgotten _that_ little detail: the task at hand of killing the Whore of Babylon. He hadn't given it _any_ thought at all, actually, not since… seeing what he'd seen. He didn't really want to have to think about how to deal with this whole Whore thing, he was too freaked out over this _other_ crisis. _God, why was he always the one whose shoulders bore the burden?_ He was at his limit, anything else would probably break his back completely. Cas suddenly reappeared. "The Whore is in the fellowship hall with some others," he said. "They're… locking people into a small room inside the church."

"_What_?" Sam asked. "What the hell for?" Dean demanded. Cas's eyes slid sharply to Dean's. "I don't know. I suggest we hurry."

Dean made a face. "Yeah, great." He pulled together a plan out of thin air, too fed up to give it much thought. "Okay Trenchcoat, you go in there, stick with the Whore, wait for the signal." Dean looked at the padre at this point. "We get the jump on her, angel boy over there grabs her, holds her down, you stick the stake in her, we call it a day. Sound good?" He looked at everyone briefly in turn, daring them to ask him more questions or do something to further sour his mood. "Simple enough for all of you?"

Sam and Alex looked annoyed with him and his shitty attitude, Cas looked vaguely foreboding, the pastor looked physically ill and also doubtful, regarding Dean with disbelief, like he wasn't sure who put him in charge. "Great," Dean said without any enthusiasm, just more bad attitude. "Let's do this."

He started out toward the church, striding with purpose, propelled by anger, frustration—the usual. Everyone followed him except Cas, who just stood there. Dean paused, looked back, raised his eyebrows and jutted his chin out as Sam and the pastor continued. "What are you waiting for?" Dean prompted impatiently. "Did you forget what I told you to do? Inside. Wait for the signal." Cas held Dean's gaze, then his eyes flickered to Alex, who'd stopped a couple steps ahead of Dean. Cas then looked at Sam, who was right at the church door, turned back halfway, concerned. It looked to Dean like Cas was gauging how safe it was to leave Alex alone with him—and just when Dean was about to say something douchey to him again, Cas disappeared. "Give me a friggin' break," Dean muttered, turned back around toward the church, only to be confronted by the pissed off face of his sister right in front of him.

"You really need to stop that," Alex told him with a dark, quiet anger. Dean stopped, looked at her pointedly. "Stop _what_?"

She gave him a look that clearly said 'you_ know _what you asshole.' But she said nothing, visibly held back, trying her best not to detonate on him in the middle of the job. Still, if looks could kill...

"Guys, we gotta go _now_," Sam said, gesturing at the unopened church door. The pastor's grip tightened on the stake, he looked sickened—and maybe on any other day, Dean would have felt for the guy, but today he was too overwhelmed with everything else, and he decided that he couldn't let another single minute go by without saying something to his sister. "We'll catch up," Dean told his brother, in a tone that suggested there was to be no arguing. But Sam looked doubtful and reluctant, his gaze darting to his twin and then back to his brother. "Dean…" Sam started.

"I said we'll catch up Sam!" Dean exclaimed forcefully. At the outburst, Sam shook his head and let out an exasperated sigh, moved like he was about to come over there—but then Alex held up a hand, gave him a drawn, tight little smile. "It's _fine_ Sam," she told him, and Sam stopped, his brows furrowed deeply. He glanced at Dean skeptically before looking back at her. "You sure?"

Alex glanced at Dean darkly, then at Sam again. "Yeah. Just go."

Sam looked really unhappy about it, but he said nothing, just looked at them both for a minute and then turned, and with a final backward glance, disappeared into the church with the pastor following, leaving Dean and Alex alone.

Alex turned her head smoothly, looked at Dean cooly, her arms crossed. "What's your problem?" she asked in a soft low voice, and her cynical, rude tone was one he wasn't used to.

"I saw the two of you, okay? I _saw_ him kissing you." She looked mildly caught-out, but held her ground when he went closer to her and lowered his voice. "How long has this been going on, huh?" he demanded. "And don't you dare tell me you don't know what I'm talking about."

She seemed irritated by his question, looked at him with a narrow-eyed scowl. "It's not that simple," she replied in a tense voice that suggested she was holding back.

"Like hell it isn't!" Dean raged, his blood pressure off the charts. "Lemme tell you this much, first and foremost. If that son of a bitch has touched you at all, I will rip his fucking wings off. I mean it, Alex! How far has it gone, huh? Has that bastard done more than kiss you? Don't lie to me."

"You know what, _screw you_," Alex said, looking at him like he was scum. "I'm starting to get why Sam left for Stanford. It was shit like this, Dean!"

"Answer the damn question, Alex!"

"_Stop bossing me around, Dean_!" she all but exploded—he had never heard her scream like that at anyone, ever, and he was momentarily shocked into silence. She was breathless in her anger, she was flustered, her voice was raising in pitch, she sounded accusing when she spoke again. "What, you're only gonna be nice to me if I do _exactly _what you want all the time? You're only gonna _respect me _if I constantly walk on eggshells around you? Does that _remind_ you of anybody, _huh_?" Dean's jaw tightened because he knew, right away, that she meant Dad. "I have followed you my _entire life_," Alex said acidly, "I have _always_ done what you said. But things have changed." She looked at him coldly, shook her head, set her mouth into a tense line, narrowed her eyes. "And you don't get to decide about this."

Oh _hell no_. It was Dean's turn to explode. "You don't _get _to make decisions if you're gonna be so friggin' _stupid_ about them! I mean, come on!" He looked at her like she was nuts. "You got a death wish, Al? Cuz it sure looks that way from where I'm sitting!"

"You're the one thinking about saying yes to Michael, so don't give me that death wish crap!" she retorted, voice bordering on a shout. She stopped, visibly forced herself to calm down—but it looked like she was struggling. "If I want to be with Cas, that's my decision, not yours. End of story."

Dean could have frigging shaken her. "Oh no, no no _no—_I am _not_ letting you do that," he growled, to which she made a face like she was disgusted with him. "Do _what _Dean."

"Lemme tell you something, I sacrificed too much, _gave_ too much to this family and to _you_ to let you throw it all away now," Dean said, his voice almost trembling with the mounting emotion. He was starting to get desperate, unsure how she couldn't see _why_ he was so mad. Why couldn't she see that he was _scared _for her? "Use your brain for _two seconds_!" he begged. "The dude is an _angel_! He is not the same _species _as us. He doesn't know how to be _human_. What, you think your immortal boyfriend is just gonna stick around when you get old and saggy? That the two of you will just ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after like a normal little couple? Get your head out of the damn clouds, Al!" She didn't respond to his pleas, only looked more and more exasperated and closed off. Dean's voice rose an octave in distress. "You _saw_ the future, you _saw_ your tombstone and you know he's the reason you end up that way—why the hell won't you _listen_ to me?" And unable to stop himself, Dean threw out another intentionally cruel comment in an effort to get her to react, say something, anything. "What, he kisses you a couple times and you decide you're in_ love_ with him? Grow up, Alex!"

She didn't spit back an angry retort like he thought she would, in fact, her face fell. She looked crushed. And Dean felt like the breath had been knocked out of him, like he'd been swallowed in shocked sadness as he realized why she'd reacted that way. "You _are_, aren't you? You're in love with him." She said nothing, but her jaw worked oddly and Dean needed no further confirmation. "That is just the most fucked up—how could you be so..." he clenched his teeth and shut his mouth, holding back angry insults. Dammit, Alex. _Dammit._ He shut his eyes for a beat, grimaced, took a deep breath in through his nose, trying to control himself. He couldn't believe how suddenly _sad_ he felt, realizing that she really _was_ in love with Cas.

He looked at her again and he suddenly felt so awful for how hurt and torn up she looked. He felt himself getting emotional as he tried again to tell her why he was upset and what was so wrong with the whole situation. If he could just get her to _understand_... "Look. I get it, Al, I do. Guardian angel shows up, saves the girl, takes a bullet for her, spews all this crap about protecting her forever… it's the setup to a damn romance novel. Except you are _not in a book_ Alex, this is the real world and any future with this guy would _destroy you_!" He looked at her, strained with desperation, hoping she would just_ listen to reason_ and come back to planet earth.

But she looked back at him clearly in denial. "You don't know that for sure—that's just your excuse," she said, and there was no mistaking how angry and bitter she was at him. "You think I don't know why you're pulling this crap on me?" she asked accusingly. "You just don't want to see me happy."

"Screw happiness, I want you _safe_!" Dean exclaimed—the first response that had come to mind—and what he'd said because he cared about her more than almost anyone else in the world didn't seem to sit very well with her. Alex's face fell, a single eyebrow moved up. She looked like she thought he was an idiot, like she couldn't believe the bullshit she was having to put up with. She shook her head, eyes rolling. "Wow Dean. Okay. Yeah, thanks."

She turned to walk away and Dean reached out, grabbed her by the shoulder, refusing to leave the conversation there. "We are _not _done," he told her forcefully, and she jerked away, yelling "_get off me_!" and shocking him when she shoved him away, hard, with both of her hands. "_You _get _your _head out of the clouds!" she shouted at him, and the expression on her face made Dean feel like she regarded him as an abomination. "You think I'm gonna stick around and be miserable with _you_ the rest of my life?" she demanded, "that I'm just gonna stick around with you_ forever_?" She jabbed a finger at the top of her head. "I have had it _up to here_ with you and your self-righteous bullshit!"

"I'm trying to _take care_ of you!" Dean protested in indignant anger, and Alex gave him a cold, malevolent look, hit him right where it hurt. "Well you're doing a crappy job, like _always_," she said, knowing exactly the effect it would have on Dean, who felt like he'd been slapped in the face. That was probably the most hurtful thing she'd ever said to him. _Did she really think that_? After all they had been through together, everything they had survived, everything he'd done for her, _sacrificed _for her? He literally felt his chest pang in a strong sense of betrayal.

"H-how can you _say that_?" he asked, stunned, wounded. He felt a shameful tightness in his throat, he could barely speak. "After everything I've ever done for you?"

She didn't seem to care one way or another that he was hurt. And he realized that he'd gotten it wrong. She said the most hurtful thing she'd ever said to him_ next _when she shook her head, looked at him in almost hatred. "You are_ just _like Dad in all the worst ways."

Dean was left speechless, cut to the quick. And at his silence, Alex's expression changed, became a little uncertain, she blinked a couple times, opened her mouth to say something—and then the sound of a muffled gun shot rang through the night. In unison, the siblings looked toward the church, where it had come from, at each other, then took off at a run into the building.

They could hear people screaming and shouting as soon as they burst through the door, and Dean ran, leading the way toward the ruckus, Alex close behind, realizing she currently had nothing on herself in the way of a weapon. There was another gun shot as they burst into the fellowship hall, which was in complete chaos.

Sam struggled with Jane, who had a shotgun and was firing into the ceiling, trying to break away from his grip—there was pounding and screaming coming from a locked, closed door on the opposite side of the room—the pastor was shot in the chest and dead on the ground, the stake on the floor a few feet off from him—a few of the townspeople were rushing Sam, trying to pull Jane away or maybe bash Sam's brains in, it was hard to tell—but the thing that Alex zeroed in on right away through all the confusion in the room was the sight of Cas, on the ground, groaning loudly and squirming in intense pain. Leah stood over him—her back to the door, leaving her unaware of Dean and Alex's arrival—her hand was raised, fingers outstretched toward Cas, she was chanting in a strange language... and each strange word that fell from her mouth seemed to cause Cas more pain, and Alex didn't even think. She just charged forward and barreled into the Whore like a linebacker, tackling her away from Cas, knocking the air out of her lungs and ending the incantation completely when she slammed Leah's body down to the ground.

The Whore hadn't even finished hitting the ground before she was twisting her shoulders violently, throwing Alex off and to the side at surprising velocity, with much greater strength than someone of Leah's size should have had. Half sliding, half flying across the floor on her side, Alex slammed into a table leg painfully with her upper back, knocking the table a few feet back from where it had been. And as she looked up briefly, across the floor, she saw Cas, his face a twisted wreck of pain. He was looking at her. It was one of those slow motion moments, where all Alex could do was stare, hear her own heartbeat. Seeing him injured was equal parts horrifying and infuriating. _Oh my God, if she ever lost him, if he ever died or disappeared forever…_ and then she saw the stake, within her reach, sort of halfway between herself and Cas. And even as she heard the footsteps of the Whore coming toward her, Alex threw herself into a frenzied crawl, grabbed the stake, scrambled up to her feet as she held the stake up at shoulder level, whirling and facing the Whore, standing between her and Cas.

She heard Castiel groaning "Alex, _no_," on the floor, even as Leah sauntered closer, giving the appearance of casual boredom, a chilling little smile darted across her face. "Don't make me _laugh_—you think _you_ could kill me? You're _nothing_." Alex didn't have time for small talk. She lunged forward, brought the stake down, aiming it for the Whore's chest—but Leah's little hand shot out, stopping Alex's wrist in an iron grip, then bending Alex's arm back painfully. Yelping, Alex did the only thing she could think of—rearing back and head butting Leah hard and fast, sending the Whore stumbling backwards, a look of pure, unadulterated rage on her face. Determined in the worst way, Alex moved forward again, stake gripped tightly, head pounding—and then Leah's hands raised up, the palms flat and facing Alex—and suddenly Alex was sent flying clear across the room and into the doorframe where she hit her head and dropped to the ground, limp. The stake went skittering across the floor.

The entire thing had happened in the space of maybe ten or fifteen seconds—and Dean, who had rushed to Sam to tear two guys off of him, saw his sister hit the doorframe and snapped. Instantly leaving Sam to hold a struggling Jane, Dean charged forward and lunged mindlessly at the Whore—who knocked him down without even touching him, then leapt forward over Dean, closed her hands around his throat. Struggling and turning red as air became short in supply—_she was a whole helluva lot stronger than she looked!_—Dean's arm reached out, fingers searching for the stake, which he knew was somewhere to his right. He could hear Cas somewhere nearby groaning, could hear Sam struggling with Jane still.

"_Please_," Leah said harshly as she saw Dean trying to reach the stake his sister had dropped. "First your sister and now _you_? Like _you're_ a servant of Heaven!" She pushed harder against his windpipe, leaned close, her voice menacing and vindictive. "_This_ is why my team's gonna win. _You're_ the great vessel? You're pathetic, self-hating, _faithless_. It's the end of the world. And you're just gonna sit back and watch it happen, you're gonna let them all die like you_ always _do."

And_ that_? That was the moment that Dean Winchester decided he was _done_. Done fighting, done being the man who let everyone, including himself down. Done resisting day after day when he could _do_ something that actually would change things. He was done standing by and seeing the future he'd seen in 2014 begin to unfold. Done believing that Sam could say no forever. Done trusting that Alex was smart enough to take care of herself. Done being a stupid, stubborn asshole. _Done_. And his fingers made contact with the stake. With all the brute force he could muster, Dean punched the Whore with his other hand, hard enough that she lost her grip on him—and with a gutteral shout, Dean staked her through the chest. Her face reverberated with shock. "Don't be so sure about that, _bitch_," he growled, and pushed her off of himself, hard, where she flopped around on her back. As he stood up and looked down at her, regaining his breath, her face distorted, the Whore's true form screamed through. The stake, sticking out of her chest, caught fire—the Whore screamed, her face jittering demonically—and the stake exploded, leaving a burning hole and a silent, shocked room. Jane had stopped struggling in Sam's grip, her face registered horror. "What—who was that? That wasn't Leah?"

Dean looked at her with a glare, pulling at the collar of his shirt as if trying to get more air. "No. And the so called angels you been taking orders from? Fake. All of it." He didn't bother hiding how pissed he was. "You've been duped, lady."

"But…I don't understand. How are we supposed to get to paradise now?"

Dean looked at the dead pastor—damn, maybe if he hadn't been out there arguing with his sister, he could have prevented that from happening—guilt shimmered through him, but he looked back at Jane, whose face was sickened as she realized how manipulated she'd been, and the price two men had paid for it. "Sorry," Dean said cynically, shaking his head. "Pretty sure you're headed in a different direction."

"_Dean, Sam_… Alex…" Cas said on the floor, and both of the brothers looked, saw Cas propped up on his stomach, using one of his forearms as support, the other hand pressed to his stomach—he'd apparently dragged himself, in the chaos, to their sister, who was silent, still, unmoving, a collapsed heap on the floor—and a trail of blood streaked out of her mouth on one of the sides. The angel looked up at them, and the look of fear on his face was unmistakable. Sam rushed over, dropped to his knees, checked Alex's vitals, even as Dean stood there, not able to move, because _if she was dead_…

"She's fine, just unconscious… hit her head, looks like," Sam said. And Dean could breathe again. He turned to Jane, looked at Rob, who had a black eye. Dean jabbed a finger at the locked closet. "Let those people out, you hear me?" Rob immediately nodded, went to do what Dean said. Dean looked at Jane with no shortage of disgust. "And next time you decide you're righteous, do me a favor and remember the two men who have tombstones because of you."

He turned, saw Sam picking up Alex. She looked small in her twin's arms and Dean looked down at Cas reluctantly. The angel was grimacing deeply._ Of course _Dean got stuck helping_ him _out. He yanked Cas up roughly and slipped an arm under Cas's, supporting him. Doubled over, seeming dazed completely, Cas could barely walk, his stumbling feet barely able to keep up as Dean began to walk them back the way they'd come.

Slumped weakly against Dean, Cas groaned in pain. He could feel the angel craning his neck to look backwards. "Is she…?" Cas asked woozily, clearly barely able to even form a coherent thought, but still asking about Alex, voice thick with worry.

"She's _fine_," Dean said gruffly, if only to shut him up. He glanced back, saw his unconscious sister's head lolling weirdly as Sam carried her. "Dean, how the hell did you even do that?" Sam asked tensely as they hurried out of the church. "Do _what_?"

Sam was short on patience. "_Kill_ her."

"With the stake," Dean replied with automatic sarcasm, then purposefully ran Cas into the fence they were walking beside, muttered "_oops_" without even trying to sound apologetic.

"That's _not what I meant_," Sam said, frustrated as he followed Dean across the wet lawn.

"Long run of luck held out, I guess," Dean answered evasively, wishing Sam would just _shut up _already. But, of course, he didn't. "Yeah, sure…" Sam replied dubiously. "Last I checked, she could only be killed by a _servant of Heaven_."

"Well, what do you want me to tell you?" Dean asked, staring at Sam across the roof of the Impala. "I saw a shot and I went for it, now can we please get these two back to the motel?"

He yanked open the back door and sort of dumped Cas in, slamming the door behind him. Sam looked at Dean in clear disapproval, shook his head, then hunkered down, opening the back door on his side of the car. Sam gently maneuvered his unconscious sister into the back of the car—and Cas reached out, helping, holding her up.

And Dean, who had just gotten into the driver's seat and started the engine, glanced into the rearview, saw that, and once again almost had a stroke, seeing how Cas took Alex and held her up even though he was struggling himself. He heard Sam get into the car, close the door behind himself.

"Are you gonna do something stupid?" Sam demanded, to which Dean looked at him wrathfully. "Like _what_?"

"Like _Michael _stupid," Sam said accusingly.

"Come on, Sam. Give me a fuckin' _break_!" he all but shouted, snapping, hating the fact that his brother could see through him like that. Sam seemed to snap, too. "_Give you a break_, Dean? If you hadn't picked a frigging fight with Alex back there, Pastor Gideon might still be alive!"

"Well you shouldn't have gone in without me!" Dean retorted.

Sam stared at Dean silently for a beat, looked away. "We saw a chance and went for it, okay?" He gave a fake little smile as he looked down into his lap. "And you know, funny thing is, with the way you've been lately, I sort of thought we might be better off taking her down without you."

Dean gave Sam a look that could kill—cuz Sam knew_ exactly _what he was doing when he said crap like that. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Sammy," he retorted sarcastically. "That's real great."

Sam glanced into the back seat, apparently done talking with Dean. "You okay, Cas?"

"I'll be fine…" he replied slowly. Dean glanced in the rearview, saw Cas holding Alex's unconscious form, both of his arms wrapped around her holding her securely, his expression tense and worried, eyes boring into the space just in front of him unseeingly. Dean clenched the steering wheel tightly and the tires squealed as he slammed the gas pedal to the floor.

His brother was gonna be Lucifer's muppet and his sister was playing with fire and she apparently didn't care if she lived or died, so why should he care if _he_ lived or died? The car flew through the dark night at illegal speeds.

_"You are just like Dad in all the worst ways."_

_No he _wasn't_, dammit!_ Deep sadness filled him. He was though, wasn't he? _Just _like their father. Stubborn, obsessed, angry, addicted, broken, destructive. And more than that, he was just as pathetic and miserable as he'd ever been. Every bit as useless and worthless as Dad had always made him feel. This—being used as the vessel of heaven—was his chance to show everyone, including himself, that he wasn't going to be a damn fool like his father had been, focusing his entire life on something that destroyed them in the end. Dean was tired of fighting the angels. He wasn't about to let the dismal future he'd visited come true. He was stopping it all, he was finally going to go against all of his deeply entrenched instincts—instincts to protect his family above everything else—and do the big-picture thing for once in his damn life.

And unbidden, Dean found himself remembering something that had happened to him a couple years back, during the year he'd been waiting to go to Hell to pay up on that soul deal. It had been a dream in which he was confronted by himself. He'd literally been standing in a room, facing another him.

_"You don't even care if you live or die," the dream Dean had said. "Talk about low self-esteem, Dean. Then again, I guess it's not much of a life worth saving, now is it?"_

_"Wake up, Dean. Come on, wake up," he'd muttered to himself, not wanting to hear this, not wanting to face any of it. Nothing happened, and the image of himself before him kept talking, condescending, judgmental. "I mean, after all, you've got nothing outside of your brother and sister. Your brother stays with you out of guilt. Your sister out of necessity. You are nothing, Dean. You're as mindless and obedient as an attack dog."_

_"That-that's not true."_

_"No? What are the things that you want? What are the things that you _dream_? I mean, your car? That's Dad's. Your favorite leather jacket? Dad's. Your music? Dad's." Each statement had driven the feeling of despair of _my God he's right _even deeper. "Do you even _have _an original thought?"_

_Dean had scoffed, trying to look unaffected as his adversary continued. _

_"No, you don't. No, all there is is, 'Keep Sammy out of trouble, watch out for Al! Look out for your little brother! Keep your sister safe, boy!' You can still hear your Dad's voice in your head, can't you? Clear as a bell."_

_"Just shut up," Dean told the dream, and his fingers curled around the shotgun he carried._

_"I mean, think about it... all he ever do is train you, boss you around, mistreat Alex who you tried so hard to protect in your own mind but really… you weren't brave enough to do what was right for her. You weren't selfless enough to get her out of the hellhole you called home life. You fucking coward. You're nothing but a hammer." Dean paused, smirked. "Funny huh about Sam? Sam he doted on. Sam, he loved. Why didn't he ever treat you that way, huh? You did everything he asked and more." Dream Dean chuckled sardonically. "Dad knew who you really were. A good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument. Your own father didn't care whether you lived or died. Why should _you_?" _

_And his internal monologue had thrown him into a fit of rage. Dean snapped. "Son of a bitch!" he'd roared, then pushed himself hard, sent himself flying into the wall. "My father was an obsessed _bastard_!" He kicked himself down, pummeled himself and pinned himself to a wall using the shotgun. "All that crap he dumped on me, about protecting Sam, about keeping Alex safe!? That was _his_ crap! He's the one who couldn't protect his family, who couldn't live up to his own standards!" Dean hit himself across the face with the shotgun, enraged. "He's the one who let Mom die!" He shoved himself into the wall. "Who wasn't there for Sam or Alex! I always was! He wasn't fair!" His voice rose an octave in heartbroken despair. "I didn't deserve what he put on me! And I don't deserve to go to hell!"_

The sound of a shotgun blast echoed in Dean's mind and he felt his jaw clench involuntarily as he remembered shooting himself point-blank in the chest, watching the dream version of himself die. He_ didn't _deserve any of what he'd been handed, none of it _had_ been fair, but that didn't change a damn thing. He'd still been handed it, he'd still been shouldered with more responsibility and loss than most people could even handle _hearing _about, much less living through.

Just once, Dean wished he didn't have to be the one who had to make these soul-crushing, life or death decisions. But like he'd decided earlier, he was just done. He wasn't even sure if this were the right decision, to say yes to Michael. He just couldn't fight anymore, he was tired of putting off the inevitable. Maybe he should have known, all those months ago, that fighting the whole Michael-wants-your-body thing was a losing game. He should have at least realized that fighting it would only make it worse for the people he loved.

All he'd ever wanted was for his siblings to be happy and safe... but with him, close enough for him to keep an eye on them, watch out for them. He really _had_ been Daddy's blunt little instrument, huh? He realized morosely that his entire life was built around those commands: Keep Sammy out of trouble, watch out for Al. Look out for your little brother; keep your sister safe, boy.

If he looked back over his thirty-one years, it became clear to him just how deeply ingrained those commands had become. Dean had forced Sam back into the life, he'd kept Alex in it and with him because there hadn't seemed to be any other option… but now Dean wondered if he should have somehow gotten her out of this life years ago, if he should have left Sam at college to be safe, happy, clueless. Maybe Jess would still be alive. Maybe Alex wouldn't be involved with an angel who was going to destroy her life. Maybe his baby sister, the one he'd taught how to count to ten and throw a punch and change a flat tire… maybe she wouldn't be about to lose one or both of her brothers to the apocalypse. You know, maybe he couldn't entirely blame her for the torch she carried for Cas. Maybe it was her way of coping with so much pain and loss and screwed up situation after screwed up situation. He'd done some pretty crazy stuff to deal with the life, too.

Dean pulled the Impala up to the motel, glanced into the rearview again... saw Cas gently touching Alex's face, wiping the blood away from her mouth with his thumb, his face a mask of concern. And Dean could barely contain his anger. He didn't care how much she needed to deal with their crap life. That was too much for him to handle. How dare that bastard touch her like that?

In a fury, Dean got out of the car, yanked Cas's door open and grabbed Alex from him, taking her from him with a low growling mutter of, "give her to me."

And Dean marched inside without a backwards glance, taking his sister over to one of the twin beds and laying her down there. Her head flopped over to the side, face covered in long, dark strands of hair. And he stopped, wished he hadn't fought with her. He reached down sadly, smoothing her hair out of her face. "You are so, so stupid Alex," he told her softly, anguished. Wondering if this were the last time he'd see her again. Trying to remember the time when she'd loved him and looked up to him and they'd been best friends.

He heard Sam coming in and turned slightly, then tensed when he saw that Sam was helping a limping Cas in. Standing, Dean frowned. "I don't want him in here," Dean told his brother gruffly.

"He's _hurt_, Dean," Sam said, his whiny tone implying that Dean should feel bad about that.

"_Good_!" Was Dean's reply as he stormed across the room. And surprising Sam and Cas both, Dean grabbed Cas by the lapels, ripping him out of Sam's supportive grip, slamming him up against the motel wall. "What the _hell_ were you two doing out there tonight, huh? I saw you kissing my sister, you son of a bitch!"

"Dean, whoa!" Sam protested, grabbing Dean's shoulder. Dean shoved Sam away hard, pointed a warning finger. "Back off Sam, I'm warning you!" He thundered, and Sam just stood there and looked at Dean in shock. Dean jerked his head back to Cas. "What the hell do you have to say for yourself, huh?"

The angel was woozy, his head held unevenly, his eyelids heavy. He was frowning and grimacing. "You're... upset," he managed, to which Dean's grip tightened and he shoved him against the wall harder. "You promised me you wouldn't do anything to risk her life Cas, you're _damn right_ I'm upset!"

Face filled with confusion and pain and hesitance, Cas looked Dean in the eye. "I want her safe just as much as you do. Perhaps more, in fact. Please believe me." His expression became pleading. "I tried to keep this from happening—I've tried to keep my distance. "

"Well try _harder_!" Dean shouted.

"I'm sorry Dean," Cas replied, sounding genuine and unsure. "I don't know how to… I don't know how to not be with her."

Dean's blood went cold. "_Be_ with her?" he repeated, then his voice raised to a roof-shaking shout. "I should rip your damn wings out, Cas!"

"That's literally not possible," Cas mumbled, sounding drunk again in his dazed state. Even as he said that, Sam was back, putting a hand on Dean, and one on Cas, trying to separate the two, successfully pushing Dean back a few steps. "Dean, stop, _calm down_!" Sam told him, holding out a hand as he stood between his brother and the angel.

"I _can't_ calm down, Sam!" Dean exclaimed, voice rising in panic and emotion. "This is your sister's_ life _on the line!"

"Dean, I'm going to find a way to change things," Cas said, struggling to speak through what was obviously a lot of pain. "Just like you're going to find a way to stop the apocalypse, I'll—"

"No, no—_no_!" Dean raged. "You wanna have your cake and eat it too? That is my _sister_ you dick! She deserves a whole hell of a lot better than the likes of you!"

There was an intense, brief silence. And Cas looked down, voice low and filled with regret. "You're right. She does deserve better."

Cas turned and sat down—almost fell over—onto the bed he'd been standing beside. Sam steadied him by the shoulder as Dean stared at him silently, murderously. Cas looked at Dean sadly. "After all we've been through, Dean all I've done is help you…"

"You call_ this_ help!?" Dean cut him off incredulously. "Don't try and guilt-trip me into being your friend, I don't owe you a _damn_ thing!"

"I raised you out of Hell," Cas said, to which Dean glared. "Yeah, cuz you were _told_ to!"

Cas's passive, puppy-dog eye expression was fading, into something more like anger. "I went against Heaven, I lost _everything_—"

Dean cut him off again, done with the bullshit. "Are you some kind of _moron_, Cas? I don't care what you lost, look at what you're _doing_! You're risking her life and you're a selfish bastard! If you cared about her at all you'd walk away _right now_!"

Cas looked conflicted as hell, his jaw going rigid and eyes going down, as if he were thinking something over very carefully. "I'm sorry Dean, I can't do that."

"Can't or _won't_?" Dean challenged with a rising voice.

Cas looked at him dead in the eye, and there was a lot of guilt in his gaze. "Both."

Dean shook his head slowly, barely able to see straight. "You son of a…"

Cas cut him off. "I left everything behind and was cast out of Heaven because I believed you were capable of changing the future. Can you extend the same trust to me?" Sam, who was standing back and listening intently, looked at Dean cautiously.

Dean threw his arms wide. "I _did_ trust you! And then I find out you're sneaking around behind my back, seducing my sister telling her God knows what! You're taking _advantage_ of her! She's naive, she's practically a kid, Cas! How can you think _any_ of this is okay?" Dean stopped, looked at Cas in cold, judgmental disgust. "Look at you. I can see the wheels in your head turning, trying to rationalize what you're doing to her, to my _family_—" he stopped, then looked at Cas with almost a smile. "Well guess what, halo? I'm putting an end to it once and for all."

And Dean gave him a final glare for good measure and stormed out of the motel, hearing Sam yell his name as he followed.

"Dean, _stop_!" Sam said, catching up to Dean on the motel sidewalk. Turning around slowly, Dean looked at his brother acidly. "Dean what the hell is going on with you?" Sam demanded angrily. "How could you say that stuff to Cas after everything he's done for us?"

"Don't act like you don't know why," Dean said coldly, to which Sam's jaw tightened perceptibly. "Look, I get that you're upset but I've never seen you touch Alex like that before—I mean you _scared_ her Dean."

"Well she_ should _be scared!" Dean retorted emphatically.

"What, of Cas? Or of you?" Sam asked, and his low voice began to raise in anger. "Last time I checked, he's the one who took a fucking_ bullet _for her—Cas would _never_ in a _million years_ lay a finger on her in the wrong way!"

Dean looked at his brother in baleful disbelief. "You don't _know_ that Sam!"

"Get your _head_ out of your ass, Dean!" Sam shouted back, and Dean let out a heavy huff of air, wet his lips, set his brother with a you're-an-idiot look.

"So what, you're cool with this dude, this thousands and_ thousands _of years old dude cozying up to your baby sister? The same sister who has never, Sam, _ever_, had a lasting relationship outside of you, myself, Dad, and maybe Bobby? She falls in love with the first guy who comes along and makes moon eyes at her—and as our long string of shit luck would have it, the guy just so happens to be a creepy old special ed angel! That's all _okay_ with you?" Dean didn't give him a chance to reply, continued to rant.

"I mean why the hell am I the only one with enough brains to see that this is the worst idea ever? And as if the creepy To Catch a Predator vibe wasn't enough, I've seen the frigging future where he's the reason she's dead and buried underground! Where them being together—_together_, Sam—gets her killed! You're cool with her waltzing into her own coffin? You wanna hand her some nails while you're at it, drive some in yourself, huh?"

Sam waited a second, his expression bitchy and cool. "I didn't think you believed in destiny Dean. I thought you said we could change things. Isn't that one of those things? What makes you believe that she's as good as dead?" He raised his eyebrows, looked at Dean searchingly. "Is it really that you believe Cas gets her killed, or you just not wanting her happy?" Dean's face fell as Sam continued. "Because she really likes him, Dean. And he really, _really_ cares about her."

Dean shook his head, disappointed and let down as hell. "I can't believe you, Sam."

"And I can't believe _you_, Dean," Sam said. "You're acting _crazy _about this!"

"Sam, our baby sister doesn't have a heaven and is messing around with the guy who gets her killed in the future, a guy who is kissing up on her in a body that's not even his, a guy who will outlive her by a million years—no exaggeration! Of course I'm going to act crazy, why the hell aren't _you_!?" Dean's righteous anger faded into a cynical, little smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I guess I forgot. All the times you abandoned this family because you were too selfish to accept your responsibilities, too self interested to give a crap either way what happened to her or me. Same thing now, huh."

Sam made a face like he didn't even get why Dean would say that. "That's not fair, Dean. I have _always_ cared about what happened to you, _both _of you!"

Dean was cold now, unaffected. "Nah. I don't believe you Sam, cuz actions speak louder than words, and I can guarantee one thing about you. You always give up, you always walk away."

"Oh, and that's not what _you're _doing right now?" Sam accused.

"What are you talking about, huh Sammy?"

"Dean, I'm not the idiot that you think I am. You think I haven't noticed how depressed you are? How off you've been? You think I don't know _why_?"

Dean tilted his head to the side, made a mock-concerned face. "What, you wanna have some girl time Sam? Talk about all my bad feelings and sad thoughts?"

Sam's nostrils flared, a muscle jerked in his jaw, he shook his head as his mouth worked oddly. "You know, you are making it _really _hard for me right now."

"To do what, Sam?" Dean asked carelessly.

"To hold it together, to have faith in you!" Sam replied intensely, to which Dean rolled his eyes. "Oh cry me a river, Sammy."

"I am _trying_ Dean, trying really hard to do this," Sam told him angrily. "But I can't do it if you're gonna keep being such a dick."

"Well you'll be relieved then," Dean told him with another facetious little smile. "Cuz you don't have to do it anymore."

Sam swallowed, his face fell. "Don't do this Dean."

"Lemme tell you something. I am not the bad guy here Sam, and I don't get why the hell you and Alex think I am. All I've ever done was look out for you two. I gave you _everything_! And it never was enough, was it?" Dean shrugged, threw his hands up. "Well I'm _done_. I am done being the guy you stick around with cuz you feel sorry for me. I am done giving and giving and _giving_ and getting nothing but shit in return. I am gonna change the future, I am gonna stop being a stupid, stubborn asshole and let those angelic bastards upstairs have their way with me."

Sam's eyebrows slammed together. "You can't be serious."

"Oh, I am."

"After all the time we've spent fighting this, Dean?!" His brother demanded, then became intense, drew himself up to his full height. "No, I won't _let _you give up."

Dean smirked to himself. "I'm sorry, Sam." And he was. "But it's too late for all that."

And before Sam could react, Dean drew back and socked him in the face hard, hard enough to send Sam stumbling back, stunned and falling to the ground. And while Sam floundered, Dean jumped into the Impala, started it up, backed it up fast—and Sam slammed onto the hood, shouting Dean's name even as he cut the wheel—and his little brother went flying sideways into the parking lot as Dean slammed the car into drive and squealed tires out of there.

And wavering to his feet, Sam shouted uselessly. "Damn it! Dean! _DEAN_!" he stood there in shock, watching the Impala disappear around the bend in the road. Sam wiped at his nose with the back of his hand, looked at the bright red blood there. He looked back at the road that Dean had raced down a second ago, and Sam Winchester suddenly felt lost completely.

_What the hell was he supposed to do now?!_

Inside the motel, Cas had edged himself along the bed he'd sat on, had then lurched across the space between it and the bed Alex was on, desperate to reach her. He'd barely kept from falling, catching himself with the palms of his hands on the mattress near Alex's feet. He'd let himself collapse forward on his stomach, and had dragged himself up alongside of her, trying to make sure she was all right, groaning from the effort of moving. He was in so much pain from the incantation the Whore had cast over him, weakened immensely.

But his pain was nothing to him, he was only frustrated at how incapable of movement he was, how he had been unable to stop the Whore from hurting Alex. He looked down at her now, watched the steady rise and fall of her chest. A small reassurance that she was all right. And everything Dean had said to him raced through his mind, inspiring vast amounts of guilt and internal pain. He looked down at her. He was clumsily arranged on his side, and one of his hands rested on the arm at her side closest to him. His fingers tightened slightly, as if he thought she might slip from his grasp. He knew she wouldn't, but still. He didn't want to let go.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ Holy crap. THE DRAMA! OMG! I couldn't believe Dean in this chapter… fighting with EVERYONE and even though he is such a damn tool, you kind of feel for the guy after all he's been through and knowing what he's attempting to do… gaaaah. Anyway… next chapter coming ASAP as possible (Office reference, anyone?) and I hope you enjoyed this one. What do you think will happen neeeext?! Also I would like to dedicated Starless by Crossfade to this chapter because I listened to it a lot and thought of Dean glaring in time to the music. No. I'm not weird. I'm SPECIAL. _

_Leave a review and let me know what you thought of the chapter. I love to hear your favorite parts, what things surprised you or made you say "Aww." Or maybe you just wanna punch Dean in the face. How will I ever know if you don't tell me? :D_


	34. You See Me

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 34 / You See Me

"_You were looking down on me__, lost in outer space. We laid underneath the stars, strung out and feeling brave."  
_- Our Lady Peace

* * *

What _happened_? That was Alex's first coherent thought as she came to, not entirely sure where she was. She last remembered seeing Cas laying on the floor of the church in obvious pain, which had made her mad as crap—so when she'd seen the stake just laying there, she remembered thinking _what the hell, right? Worth a shot._ Well, apparently not. She recalled trying to kill the Whore and then being sent flying clear across the room where she'd hit a wall. She didn't remember anything after that. Shit, is that why her head hurt so bad? She blinked a couple times, eyes adjusting to a dark room. She was laying on her back, on what felt like a shitty motel mattress. And that's when she realized that there was the substantial weight and warmth of someone beside her—_laying_ beside her.

Even as she was turning her head and trying to see who it was, he spoke. "You're awake." Cas's face was really close, so close that they were practically nose to nose—and Alex jerked her head back in surprise, then regretted the decision, cringing and shutting her eyes tightly against the sudden ripple of pain in her temple. "_Ow_."

His relief was replaced with worry. "Are you all right? Is the pain very bad?"

"I'm fine, I—" she stopped mid-sentence when she saw the blood trickling out of his nose. Without even doing it consciously, she pushed herself up so that she could see him better, reacting in alarm as she looked down at him and took in how weak and woozy he looked. "Are _you _okay?"

Her question seemed to strike him as odd. "I'm fine," he said, not seeming concerned about himself either way.

She automatically went to wipe the blood away from underneath his nose. "You don't _look_ fine," she said almost accusingly, her thumb dashing away streak of red. Her eyes darted up to his, which were already looking at her. Her thumb froze in place, her breath caught. And that's when Alex heard a familiar sound—Sam clearing his throat.

A little startled, realizing that she and Castiel were not alone—Alex looked up in the direction the noise had come from, using her elbow and forearm to push herself up a little. Sam stood a few steps off, his arms crossed and a sullen expression on his face... and a bloody nose. "Crap, Sam!" Alex exclaimed in confused surprise. "What happened to _you_?"

Her brother grew even more brooding at the question. "_Dean_ happened to me," Sam said brusquely, only confusing his sister further.

"What?" she asked and sat up, looked around for her oldest brother. She didn't see Dean anywhere, and automatically opened her mouth to ask where he was, then went silent before she'd even asked a thing. Something was wrong, very wrong. She could tell from Sam's face. She looked at Cas silently, whose expression only furthered her realization that something had happened. Fearing the worst, Alex looked back at Sam in dawning horror. Her voice dropped in volume and trembled. "W-where is he, Sam? Where's Dean?"

Sam's eyes fell away from hers and his jaw clenched. "Gone."

Her stomach dropped completely. "What do you _mean_ 'gone'?" Alex asked, her tone becoming intense and demanding—did Sam mean that Dean was _dead_? Her heartbeat was jabbering in her chest painfully, she looked at Sam in blank terror, remembering what she'd said to Dean last, how she'd left things with him. And it was like every worst nightmare she'd ever had was closing in on her, every horror she could imagine coming true… and then, behind her, still reclining on the bed, Cas's deep rumbling voice explained what Sam meant. "We believe he's gone to… say yes to Michael."

Oh. Well. That was _not_ what she had expected to hear. It should have been a relief after what she'd assumed a few seconds ago, but it wasn't. In fact, this was almost worse. Alex looked back at Cas in confused denial—_no_—no _way_, Dean wouldn't have done that. But Cas looked grim and resigned, like he saw no other explanation, and totally flabbergasted, Alex whipped her head back at Sam, who nodded heavily, wordless. And Alex looked at him in sudden, misplaced anger. "Why didn't you_ stop _him?!"

"I _tried_—can't you tell?" Sam asked derisively, and his crappy attitude wasn't exactly helpful.

Reacting, not really thinking, Alex swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her head was pounding. "We have to go after him!" she said, standing up fast and experiencing a painful rush of blood to the head. Sam saw her wobble on her feet and grabbed either shoulder gently, steadying her, keeping her from falling. "Whoa. Easy."

"And why the_ hell _would you say it to me like that, Sam?!" Alex demanded shakily, losing her temper in a mild outburst. "That he's '_gone_'?" Her voice raised an octave. "I thought you meant he was _dead_!" The words hit the air in the room and left a heavy silence in which Sam looked at her sadly, earnestly.

"I mean, Alex…" her twin started, as if he was trying to break bad news to her gently, "he might as well be." He looked at her in increasing distress. "You get that, right?"

She shut her mouth, looked at him angrily, even though she knew he was right. "Don't say that," she whispered, and she looked down, suddenly so overcome with grief. "Dammit, Sam," she muttered and tried to pull away from her brother's grip. He didn't let go, and Alex shut her eyes, growled through gritted teeth, repeating more emphatically this time, to herself more than anyone else, "_dammit_!"

"What?" Sam asked, frowning at her.

"He _told me,_ okay?" she said, deeply upset and staring at her brother helplessly, sickened. Realizing what an idiot she'd been. "A couple days ago," she said, staring into her twin's right shoulder unseeingly. "He told me he was thinking about saying yes." She looked up at her brother, who looked shocked. Glancing guiltily over in Cas's direction, Alex was struggling to maintain her composure. All of her previous anger was morphing into the most wretched sense of self-hatred and guilt. "I should have told one of you," she muttered, and Sam let go, looking deeply angry.

"Yeah, you _should _have," he said darkly, sending another wave of regret coursing through Alex.

"It wouldn't have changed anything," Cas said, slowly pushing himself up into a sitting position on the bed. "If Dean's mind was made up…" Cas paused. "I doubt any of us could have stopped him." He looked at Alex meaningfully, and she realized he was trying to tell her it wasn't her fault. There was a heavy pause.

"Maybe not," Alex conceded hesitantly, not fully convinced. She grew intense again, determined to make it right. "But we're stopping him _now_."

Sam gave a short, dark laugh. "Oh good, yeah, so do you know where he went? Cuz _I_ don't." Exasperated, he ran a hand through his hair. "I mean I don't get it, I just—" Sam's face looked gaunt at this point, he was so tense. "I can't believe he did this to us."

"Are you sure about this?" Alex asked. She didn't want to believe Dean would really do what Sam and Castiel were saying he'd done. "I mean what happened? What did he say? Maybe it's not what you think."

"Sorry, but it is," he told her, and shrugged, spread his hands out vacantly, seeming to be at a loss. "First of all: _He's_ the one who killed the Whore." He paused, let that little factoid sink in—Alex had all but forgotten about her for a minute. She felt her hope fade a little bit. Sam continued. "We came back here, he picked a fight with Cas, stormed outside, said he was gonna change the future. Then he hit me in the face and took off." He sounded unhappy with himself.

Alex fell into tense, unsettled silence, trying to swallow reality, trying to stomach it. All of her anger seemed to dissipate into confused feelings of _how could he_? After all the time they'd spent fighting this, all the times Dean had _promised _her he wouldn't say yes—he was just going to run off in the middle of the night? Abandon them? It made no sense the more she thought about it, and she tried again to figure it out. Maybe Sam was wrong. "But if he was gonna say yes, why not just do it? Why drive off and do it?"

"_Alex_," Sam said her name in a lecturing, correcting tone. "Dean straight up _told_ me he was gonna do it. Okay? I can tell you don't want to believe me but… I'm not making it up or jumping to conclusions. He's saying yes to Michael." Sam looked at her, his expression clearly stating _and that's that—end of story_.

"And what, you're _okay _with that?" She asked, hurt and disillusioned at his reaction.

He softened, seemed to realize how he'd come off. "No. Of course not." He sighed raggedly, went back to the original question she'd asked, his voice gentler now. "I, uh, I dunno why he'd drive off to do it. I guess he's not gonna do it right away." He thought a second, expelled a heavy breath. "This _is_ Dean we're talking about. Maybe he'll want a last hurrah."

"What, you mean like bars, girls, Van Halen live?" Alex asked, tone bordering on sarcastic because she felt so powerless and couldn't _believe_ that it had come to this. Her head felt like it was splitting in half, not just from physical pain but from mental, too.

Sam was quiet, thoughtful. Then looked at her in epiphany. "Lisa."

Alex had to think a minute. "Lisa? Lisa _Braeden_?" she asked, not sure if she followed Sam's line of logic. "He hasn't even seen her in like two years."

Sam shrugged slightly. "It's where he's went last time he thought his number was up," he said plaintively, and Alex remembered how they had driven halfway across the country to visit her when Dean had been dying and headed straight for Hell. She thought hard about it. Maybe Sam was right. "Look, it's a long shot," Sam said slowly, "but it's the only idea I have."

Alex wasn't so sure. But at this point, all she could think about was _why _Dean would do this. She felt hollow. Betrayed at a base level. "He told me he wouldn't," she said faintly, more to herself than anyone else. Alex just put her face in a hand and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, trying to massage away the headache and the stress, the sense of being abandoned, the urge to sit down and scream and cry and throw a tantrum like a kid would. How could Dean _do_ this to them? "That stupid, _selfish_ asshole," she muttered in a miserable, wavering voice. She felt someone touch her arm gently. Surprised, she looked up and over. Cas had gotten up at some point and was standing beside her, looking at her in tense worry. He looked like he was having a hard time standing, and Alex attempted to push down her upset, tried to look more collected than she felt, wondered if she should help him stand.

Sam was looking at Cas hopefully. "Cas, are you okay enough to zap us around?"

In response to the question, Cas's frown became a touch guilty. "No, not yet. The Whore cast some kind of weakening spell on me." He looked down grimly, his voice lowering in a morose quality. "I'm all but useless. I'm deeply sorry." He cringed a little and sat down, seeming too tired or weak to keep standing.

Sam and Alex both looked at Cas silently, uncomfortable at his comment about uselessness. Sam attempted to smooth it over. "It's, uh, it's fine Cas. I'll… jack us some wheels." He glanced at Alex cryptically. "Either way, we're leaving, _now_."

Alex took his cue and began picking up their bags off the floor, as he was hurriedly throwing his books back into his backpack. "And if this whole Lisa thing turns out to be a bust?" she asked, not sure if she was on board with the theory or not.

"It won't," he told her emphatically.

"It better not," she muttered, and grabbed a wire hanger out of her duffel, tossed it to Sam, who caught it deftly.

"What's that for?" Cas asked. He sat on the bed with a hand on either knee, giving the appearance of exhaustion and discomfort.

"You'll see," Sam said, and went over, hauled Cas to his feet, looped one of the angel's arms around his shoulders. "Come on Cas, you're gonna have to walk a little bit."

They exited the motel, Alex weighed down with all of their bags, Sam helping Cas along. The angel shuffled sort of pathetically.

"Sam what the hell do you keep in these bags, _bricks_?" Alex complained. Her twin wasn't too interested in her question, instead stood there and looked at their two options in the parking lot. A beat up old Ford pickup or a minivan.

"Truck," Sam said decisively—it was closer, anyway—and Alex looked around furtively, tossed their bags into the bed of the pickup, then took Cas from Sam, helped him around to the other side of the truck. Sam jimmied the lock using the hangar in about five seconds, then jumped into the truck, reached across and unlocked the passenger door. Alex opened the door, which groaned loudly. Helping Cas in, Alex got in after him and shut the door. It was a little cramped, the three of them all in one seat.

Sam was fumbling underneath the steering wheel, yanking some wires out and brushing them up against each other repeatedly. "I feel sort of weird, stealing a car with an angel watching," he said, glancing up and over at Cas, who just looked chagrined at the comment. The truck roared to life loudly as the wires sparked together, and Sam glanced at his sister as he straightened up and shifted the truck into gear. "Battle Creek is like nine hours drive," he told them, looking behind as he backed the truck up. "Strap in for the long haul, guys."

And so they headed East, not sure if they would find Dean, not sure if they were right about where he was going, not sure if they could stop him if they _did_ find him at all.

"Who is Lisa?" Cas asked a couple minutes down the road, breaking the silence and reminding both of the Winchesters that Cas didn't know who Lisa was. Sam glanced at his sister, who didn't look like she was in the talkative mood. So he explained, instead. "She's… an old flame of Dean's. They met way back in the day, maybe ninety-eight or ninety-nine." His face wrinkled in thought. "We went to see in her, when was that, two-thousand seven?" he looked at Alex for confirmation.

"Yeah, I guess," she mumbled.

Cas looked at her appraisingly for a minute before turning back to Sam. "Why would he go and see this woman?" he asked, to which Sam had to think for a minute, giving the impression that he wasn't quite sure about Dean's motivations.

"There haven't been a lot of girls who Dean's actually cared about seeing again. But Lisa… I dunno." Sam was quiet for a minute. "I think he kind of loves her."

Alex looked at Sam in silent surprise. She hadn't expected him to say that. She looked away again, and the truck became silent. Cas watched Alex sidelong. She remained tense and distressed, quiet, staring down at her knees.

He looked down at Alex's hand which rested on top of her leg, just inches away from his hand. He moved just a little and gingerly brushed the back of his hand up against the back of hers.

Her eyes jumped to his hand, and then up to his eyes. For a minute, she didn't do anything, just looked at him with big eyes full of an emotion he couldn't name. And then her fingers moved just slightly toward his hand, the backs of them brushing against the backs of his. That simple reciprocation made something in his chest swell. And when she gave him the smallest beginnings of a smile, a smile she obviously had to work to give him, a smile that was tinged with pain and fear—the swelling feeling almost felt impossible, like something inside of him would burst. He looked at the scrape across her cheekbone, the dark bruise just above her temple from her fight with the Whore… and the sight of those injuries, small as they were, inspired such a deep sense of failure. He couldn't seem to keep her safe, no matter how hard he tried. Underneath his gaze, Alex's flickered and she looked away, back down into her lap. But their hands stayed close, and after a couple seconds, she turned her hand, slowly and falteringly closing her fingers around his, glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. And even though he felt weaker than he had in a long time, Castiel felt like just that—the simple action of her putting her hand into his—could give him the strength to do anything.

A mere hour and a half into the drive, as Sam sped down a deserted country road, the car suddenly lurched, there was a loud explosion that shook the entire truck.

"What the _hell_!" Sam exclaimed, steering the suddenly powerless truck over to the side of the road, coasting on momentum. Alex realized Cas's arm had shot out in front of her as if to shield her or keep her from flying forward.

"Great, just great," Sam was muttering as he got out of the truck and slammed the door, hollered something about "get a flashlight, would you?"

Reluctant, Alex slid out of her seat, having a hard time taking her eyes off of Cas. Sam yanked the hood of the truck open and smoke poured out and he coughed, grimacing. Alex dug through her duffel, finding a flashlight and then going to join Sam. "What's wrong with it?" Alex asked, squinting down into the haze of smoke, trying to see what had exploded.

"Radiator maybe?" Sam said, waving a hand in front of his face in an attempt to clear the air. Alex beamed the flashlight down at the engine, eyes sweeping over the smoky jumble of parts.

"Uh, that would be a _no_," she said as she peered down at the engine and saw what had happened. She looked at her twin with a huge, fake smile on her face. He gave her a look like she was crazy before he leaned closer over the engine, squinting into the clearing smoke. His face fell when he saw what she had seen. A huge, gaping hole in the engine.

"Are you friggin' _kidding_ me?" he exclaimed, aghast at their bad luck.

"You _would_ pick the truck that was fifty miles from throwing a rod," Alex said.

Sam made a supremely irritated face at her, huffed, threw a hand up, obviously wracking his brain. "Okay so… what, I guess we should walk back to that gas station we just passed back there."

"No, let's sit here in the dark and do _nothing_," Alex countered wryly, annoyed at her sibling, the situation, and life in general. She got an exasperated glare from her twin, who commented "ha _ha_" snidely, and went to the passenger side door, where Cas was attempting to get out, one arm braced against the door, the other against the doorframe.

"Can you walk, Cas?" Sam asked, to which Castiel shot him a glance that could only be called cranky.

"Yes, of course I can walk," he said, and promptly stumbled forward, nearly faceplanting onto the side of the road. Sam managed to catch him before that could happen, and then push him back where he could lean against the truck. Sam turned and looked at Alex, who was standing there watching, unable to believe how wrong every little thing was going for them right now.

"...he can't walk," Sam said, clearly sharing her exasperation with the situation.

"I can _see_ that," Alex retorted, and Sam looked around, like he was casting for ideas on what to do. And for a moment, Alex had a twinge of empathy, realizing how stressed Sam must be, how he was probably feeling just as bad as she was. "Listen, I'll go back there, get another ride, come back and pick you guys up," he said, sounding as though he was just too tired to come up with anything else.

Upset at the holdup even though she did understand, Alex folded her arms, muttered, "yeah, great." And Sam glanced at Cas, then Alex, seeming to realize that he was leaving them alone, out in the middle of the night, unprotected. His hand moved back, took something out of the waistband of his jeans.

"Just in case you need it," he told Alex, holding his pistol out to her. She looked like she was going to argue, not accept the gun, but Sam's expression was deadly serious. "Take it," he told her in a low, sober voice.

Alex stared at him, conflicted and suddenly worried, but did what he said after a couple seconds of unwillingness. She took the gun and tucked it down it into the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back, wishing she hadn't left her pistol in the back of the Impala.

Sam nodded tersely, satisfied that he'd left her with a weapon and he turned to go, but Alex said his name, stopping him. "Sam." He turned back, eyebrows raised in expectance. She had maybe lost one brother tonight, after parting on shit terms. She wasn't gonna let that happen again.

She hesitated, then went to her twin and hugged her arms around him tightly, surprising him with the suddenness and intensity of her actions. He reacted slowly, hugged her back uncertainty. And when she drew back to look him in the eye, she was tense. Didn't tell him what she really wanted to say. Settled on, "Be careful, okay?"

And God bless her twin Sam, who saw right through her bullshit fears and her silent worries. His face softened and squeezed her arm gently, looked her in the eye, got that knowing look in his eye. He held her gaze earnestly and told her in no uncertain terms, "Alex… don't worry. I'll _be_ back. I'm not going anywhere, okay?"

"Okay," she said, face crumpling with emotion, eyes filling with tears. And Sam hugged her, tightly this time. Alex fought to keep from breaking down, struggled to regulate her breathing. Sam pulled back after a few seconds, looked at her intently, appraising her, waiting for her to be okay.

7She nodded, forced a thin smile. "Go on, time's wasting," she told him, trying to sound light. Sam glanced back at Cas, who was watching silently about ten feet away.

"Hey Cas, take care of her, all right?" Cas looked as though Sam had insulted him, but Sam was looking back at his sister and didn't notice. "I won't be long."

"All right." She nodded, and Sam shoved his hands into his pockets and headed down the road at a brisk stride, his hulking form becoming an inky silhouette as he got further and further away.

Alex watched him go, feeling more and more like this was the future she was going to be living in—one where both of her brothers were gone. She almost couldn't turn around and face Cas, because she felt so emotionally spent and raw. So much had happened in the past twenty-four hours, and it all left her completely overwhelmed. She'd been intimate with Castiel—that was enough to shake up her world forever, but then in quick succession, she'd fought with Dean and then woken up to find out that he'd run away and given up on them. Alex wondered if this was how blindsided and upset she'd made Dean feel last year when she ran away.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, took in a deep breath and turned around to look at Cas, who was standing at where the cab of the truck began. He was holding onto the edge of the truck bed, looking at her in what was obvious concern. She wasn't sure what to do at all. She wandered over to the end of the truck, near the tailgate, but didn't go any closer to him. She couldn't meet his eyes now, couldn't think of a single damn thing to say. She just wanted to destroy something, smash something to pieces, wanted to punch Dean in the face and shake him until he came to his senses. And even though part of her needed nothing more than to go to Cas and be held, she felt herself reverting back to the way she'd always dealt with pain before. Like old times, she found herself _wanting_ to be left alone in silence. It was easier there, where no one pried in and pressed at breakable things like her thoughts and feelings.

"This has been an eventful evening," Cas finally said, breaking the silence hesitantly. Alex frowned slightly, looked up from where she'd been staring at the ground—was he trying to joke? Was he trying to get her to talk to him? She wasn't sure. She just looked at him silently, unable to respond. His expression clouded a little. "I'm sorry Alex."

Her eyebrows moved together questioningly and he let out an unhappy sigh, looked down. And she could already tell he was going to start beating himself up again before he even opened his mouth. "I failed to protect y—"

She felt so much sudden anger and she snapped, because_ one_ person having a pity party was more than enough for her. "_Stop, _Cas! Just _don't_."

He seemed surprised by her loud outburst, and his surprise turned to hurt as she flat-out ranted at him in misguided anger. "You're always whining about how you didn't protect me this time and how you failed me that time, and just..." her fiery anger was fading and she felt herself teetering on the edge of such great and weary sadness. "I can't…" she attempted, and shook her head, quiet now. "Can you just _not_?" She stopped, shut her eyes, trying to get a handle on herself, miserable because now she'd gone and been rude and coarse to Cas, who didn't deserve it.

She opened her aching eyes, and he might as well have been a wounded puppy with the way he was looking at her in confused misunderstanding. "Why are you upset with me?" he asked, which only increased Alex's guilt and regret a hundredfold.

"I'm not… I'm not upset with you," she managed weakly, wanting to hide.

He came toward her, using the edge of the truck bed as support as he shakily covered the distance between them. "But you just said—" he started, then stumbled badly, only staying on his feet because of how tightly he held onto the truck and because she'd lunged forward, caught him by pressing both palms into his chest. He seemed ashamed of himself.

"_Jesus_, Cas, you can barely stand," Alex said, realizing just how drained and weak he must be feeling. "Sit down, okay? Come here." She guided him to the truck bed and yanked the handle up, letting the tail gate down with a loud, creaking thud.

She helped him sit there, and he looked down at his feet, which dangled in the air, a few inches above the ground. "I seem to be more and more useless these days," he commented blandly, setting her off again.

"You're not _useless_, will you stop saying that?" she asked intensely, not bothering to disguise how mad his self-loathing comments made her. He only looked at her sadly, as if he didn't understand how she could see him as anything other than useless. She wondered if he'd be this weakened or weakened at _all_ if he hadn't been cut off from Heaven. She felt so cynical and guarded, so to blame for what he had become—someone who thought he was useless to her, who felt less than worthy, when _she_ was the one who was useless and unworthy and stupid. "Is it worth it?" She asked him in a decidedly bitter tone. "Being cut off from Heaven, stuck down here with us in the middle of all this hopeless bullshit?"

"Yes," he replied. His eyebrows moved toward each other just slightly in earnest, as if he didn't know how she could even ask him that. "I'm with you."

His honest and clearly heartfelt response touched a raw nerve and the emotion she'd been struggling to hold down broke free, angry tears springing to her eyes. "Why the hell would you want _that_?" she asked harshly, and turned away, walked to the tail light on the opposite end of the truck, hating herself and feeling like it was her fault Dean had left, her fault Sam hadn't wanted to stay with the family back when they'd been teenagers, her fault she hadn't been good enough for Dad to love more than he had—but mostly she felt that it was her fault that she had compromised Castiel and her fault that the were in so deep now, too deep to walk away from, tangled up in this complicated, uncharted territory.

So when she heard the tailgate groaning and his feet hitting the ground, when she felt his hands on either side of her arms, when she heard him say her name with a voice so full of caring and worry... she couldn't help herself and couldn't fight him off or turn him away, didn't _want_ to. She couldn't refuse her relentless need for him. She surrendered, turned around, went into his arms, let him hold her as the tears came, even though she was ashamed of herself. "How could he?" she asked through wretched, pitiful little sobs. "Why would he just _leave_? Why would he abandon us, _me_?" She truly didn't understand, and her heart felt broken. "He said he would never do that. He_ promised_ me he wouldn't say yes."

She felt his hand resting against the back of her head, the warm and scruffy skin of his cheek and lower jaw pressed against the side of her temple. Against her back, his hand pulled her a little closer, soothingly, whether he intended it that way or not. And she shut her eyes, the tension she'd been overwrought with fading as she focused on the feeling of his chest rising and falling. How would things be, she wondered, if they were just two people? Not an angel of Heaven and a girl with a thousand unresolved issues and all these inner demons? But they weren't normal. They were Castiel, the outcast angel who had fallen into her family and Alex, the girl whose brothers were main players in the apocalypse, the end of days. She wondered, sadly if _she'd_ been the straw that broke the camel's back. The thing that had tipped the scales for Dean, had made him decide to say "yes."

It made sense now. Alex drew back, looked up into Cas's eyes. "If he hadn't seen us, Cas, he wouldn't have gone," she told him softly, feeling so guilty, but also upset because she shouldn't have to choose between her brother and the one she loved. He pressed his hand against the side of her face.

"Why do you think that?" he asked, his thumb brushing a tear streak away.

"Because of what Lucifer said to us when we were in two-thousand fourteen. He told Dean that he wouldn't say yes to Michael, that he wouldn't kill Sam, that he wouldn't be able to save me from my own foolish choices…" she trailed off, unable to say more.

"Me," Cas said heavily, understanding the unspoken implication of 'foolish choices' and hearing him say that broke something inside of her. He fell into deep and troubled thought. "I'm tearing your family apart, Alex."

She almost smiled at that comment, and it was a jaded, sad little smile. "This family has been on the rocks a long time before you came into the picture, Cas," she told him honestly, her voice carrying heavy notes of sadness as she thought of how true that was. However, she was wondering now what Sam meant by Dean 'picking a fight' with Cas, and she looked at him carefully, suddenly suspicious of what kind of insane things her brother might have said to Cas. "What exactly did Dean say to you?"

Cas didn't have to think back—he answered her immediately, like it was all he'd been thinking about. "That I'm risking your life. That I'm selfish and if I wanted to keep you safe I'd walk away."

"He _would_ say that crap," Alex muttered angrily.

Castiel just looked at her sadly. "It's not 'crap' though, is it?" the question, so gently said, caught her off guard and she looked at him wordlessly. Cas looked down, his expression twisting in anxiety and guilt. "He implied that you're a child and that I'm… taking advantage of you."

Her eyebrows slammed together in an angry frown. "Now that _is_ shit," she told him, leaving no room for argument. But he didn't look convinced and Alex's felt her emotions running high. She could literally pummel her older brother. "You're not _taking advantage_ of me, Cas, and I am not a _kid_!" She felt breathless from anger at this point, and had to tae a few deep breaths. "He acts like I don't know how to think for myself but do. And I know what I'm doing with you."

"And what is that, exactly?" Cas asked her, startling her, not only because of the earnest, anxious way he sounded when he asked—but because she realized she didn't quite know how to answer. What was she doing with him? Who was he to her? He just wasn't something you could just put into earth terms—boyfriend? Lover? Friend? None of those seemed right. The only word that came to mind for her, when she thought of him, was everything. He was _everything_. He was so unlike what she had expected to encounter, maybe because she had always believed, deep down, that she was meant to be alone. Castiel was nothing she could have dreamt up in a thousand years. He was a sum of stark contrasts, as intense and as fierce as a volcanic eruption, and yet at the same time as quiet and as gentle as a stream cutting through the heart of a forest. She glimpsed, sometimes, how otherworldly and magnificent he was, how divine. And she wondered why such a creature such as him would look at her the way that he did, would vow himself to her and kiss her in a way that made her feel like she was his very world.

At her silence Cas seemed to grow even more downtrodden and he looked away. "He's right," he said softly. "You deserve far, far better than me."

Shock wasn't a strong enough word for what Alex felt when Cas said that. "Dean _said _that?" she asked, flabbergasted, and then quickly furious. "I am gonna _strangle_ him," she said, then paused, anger fading as she thought about what she'd just said. "If he's not dead already." She heaved a charged, weary sigh, looked at Castiel tense sadness. Didn't he know how, even though he wasn't technically a man, he was the best one she'd ever met? How could he really think so little of himself? "Cas—there's no one better than you."

His face registered uncertain confusion. "I don't understand how you can think that," he told her, and fell into deep thought, giving the appearance of careful and measured deliberation. "Every minute I spend with you is something I value beyond compare, but… I'm not worthy. I feel very guilty."

His words were like shocking, painful barbs to her. "D-don't feel guilty," she managed, and the way she said it was almost pleading.

"I do, though," he told her, and his morose state only increased as his eyes traveled her face and took in her distressed features. "And now I've made you feel badly."

"I just don't want you to feel guilty," she told him, overwhelmed with how hard this was. She looked up at him imploringly, gathering her courage, trying to tell him all she felt. "You said to me, earlier tonight, that you thought maybe it didn't matter that we're different from each other. And I agree, it doesn't matter, or it doesn't _have_ to matter." His eyes looked back and forth between hers as she forged ahead, laid herself bare in front of him. Her voice lowered because of how vulnerable she felt—she remembered how he'd said their differences didn't change how he felt about her. She needed for him to know it was the same for her. "It doesn't change anything about how I feel, either," she said, and she saw how deeply the words affected him—like he couldn't believe it, like hearing it filled him with wonder and worry all at the same time. She swallowed, continued. "But… we need to face the facts, Cas. The things that make us different make this hard. Hard as hell. There's like a thousand things standing against us." She took his hands in hers gently, hesitantly looking up to him. This was one of the scariest things she'd ever done, telling him her innermost thoughts. "But I… I still want it. I still want this."

"Do you truly mean that?" he asked, appearing to dread her answer, as if he thought at a moment's notice she might change her mind.

"_Yes_."

"I… I feel the same," he told her earnestly yet falteringly, seeming to be fumbling with the heavy emotional content of the conversation. And she felt exhausted and drained by it, too, but like they were getting somewhere. She couldn't stop now.

"_That's_ what counts," she told him emphatically. "How _we_ feel. What _we _think about us. Not Dean, not Sam, not Heaven, not Hell. _Us_. You and I. That's what matters."

His gaze was steady on hers. "You're what matters," he replied, and Alex's face crumpled.

"Don't do that," she said to him. "Don't say that you don't." She could have almost cried again because the way she loved him was too big to contain and why couldn't he see how much he meant to her? "_Cas_…" she begged, out of words completely.

He looked stricken and upset, at the end of his rope, afraid almost. "I don't know how to be what you need," he said and it was nearly a protest. "I'm not _right _for you."

She looked at him through swimming visio. "Cas... there's no one else. For me, it's _you_." She said it and swallowed, tried to think of what else to say and could only shrug and turn her hands up, struggling to keep her face from twisting up in all of the emotion she felt in those words. "And that's _it_." End of story. No one else, ever. That's how deep in she was, how in love she felt.

His expression was so affected that he could have been close to tears. She suddenly found herself being pulled close into an unexpected kiss that was charged with such great amounts of soulfulness. She was stunned and set on fire, feeling like sparks were raining down over her. And responding urgently, trying to pour all of the things she felt for him into the kiss, she pressed him forward. He backed up against the truck's side and she thought maybe his knees buckled because his entire body seemed to stagger—and breathless, they broke the kiss, looked at each other in mutual surprise. She was gripping his arms tightly.

He stared at her in dawning wonder, breathing a little heavier than usual. "How do you make me _feel_ so much?" he asked slowly, as if he were in awe all over again at how kissing her made him feel. His question seemed to remind him of something or trigger another question, because his voice lowered, his expression began to border on anxious. "Is it wrong? To want..." he trailed off into silence, giving the impression that he was slightly embarrassed.

"To want what?" she asked. In response, his hand moved down from where it had rested against her waist—and his thumb grazed against her hip bone through the fabric of her hoodie and tank top. She didn't miss his meaning, especially when his dark eyes met hers. _Oh._

She suddenly felt very aware of herself and of him and of how air was in short supply. Her mouth had gone dry, her pulse was like butterfly wings. He wanted to know if it was wrong of himself to _want_ her, and realizing that was what he was asking made her completely flustered and heated in the most pleasant, aching way. "N-no," she stuttered breathlessly, trying to focus on answering his question, instead of how near she was to him. "It's not wrong to want to be close to someone," she told him, and he listened to her intently. She moved her hand from his arm up to the side of his face, brushing the backs of her fingers along the side of his face, touching him tenderly. "Especially if you care about them."

He covered her hand with his own, grasping it gently as he leaned in to kiss her again—and then headlights swept over them, startling them, and maybe by instinct, they stepped apart, looked into the light from the approaching car—and then were left realizing it wasn't Sam when the car passed them by, leaving them in silence and darkness once again. And feeling suddenly bashful, Alex backed up a little.

"You, uh, you should sit down," she told him, indicating the tail gate again—she wasn't actually sure how he'd managed to stand all this time, he still looked really drained. He looked at her in faintly perplexed bewilderment, then did as she'd said—sat down in the dead center, and settled himself there… and then surprised her when he very awkwardly patted the spot beside himself. When she looked at him blankly, surprised, he seemed to think it was because she didn't understand the gesture. "It means I'd like you to sit beside me," he explained, and she was immediately rendered helpless at the cute comment, grinning crookedly and looking down. She _knew _what it meant—but it always surprised her a little bit when he implemented the things he saw her do.

Should she really be that surprised or amused about the things he was learning and doing these days? He was learning at an amazing fast rate, becoming human in so many ways—and she knew that best of all. After all, he'd had sex with her just a day ago… and apparently, he wanted her again that way. The thought alone could have turned her into jello, and a little uneasy at how fast she was becoming distracted and physically roused, she sat beside him, glancing at him furtively. He wasn't the only one who wanted it again. And she wondered if she laid down right there and pulled him to her, if he'd make love to her right then and there under the starry night sky. Suddenly more than just a little flustered, Alex cleared her throat and looked up at the night sky, rubbing the back of her neck with her hand self-consciously. "So, uh, you been out there?" she asked him. "To the stars?"

"I've been everywhere," he told her, looking from the sky to her, seeming to be unaware of her more illicit thoughts. "But I like being here."

_With you_. He didn't say it out loud, but he didn't have to. They looked at each other for a long moment, and then he looked back up. "There," he said and pointed. She followed his gaze. "That's the constellation Lyra," he told her. She smiled to herself, because she recognized it.

She leaned a little closer to him, indicated either side of Lyra. "And that's Hercules _there_... and Cygnus on the other side," she said, to which he looked mildly surprised. "_What_?" she asked in mock defensive surprise, smiling. She shrugged a shoulder up toward her ear humbly. "I once had a study guide to constellations and a twelve hour car ride, what else was I gonna do?"

His expression was fond and his lips were upturned. He looked back to the stars, his face soft and open. She liked when he looked like that. "The star Vega, there at the top right of the Lyra constellation… do you see it?" he asked.

It was kind of hard to miss—it was the brightest one in the constellation. "Yes..." she confirmed slowly, not sure where he was going with this. And for a minute he said nothing and she thought he'd had no greater point to make, that was just showing her a star.

And then he spoke, his husky voice full of years and experiences and memories. "There's a story that the angels tell," he said, and those seven words, the way he said them, rendered Alex into a state of breathless, rapt attention, because whatever he was about to say was important—she could tell. "They say that every star in the galaxy belongs to a person who has lived, is living, or will live. Every star is…" he thought about it for a moment, "an echo of a soul, I suppose you could say." He looked at Vega again, his eyes soft as they reflected the starry host. His mouth lifted up almost imperceptibly into the ghost of a smile, and he looked down. His eyes crinkled a little at the edges. "I always thought that one would be yours."

Totally caught off guard, she couldn't look away from him. "Always?" Strange he would say always, since he was as old as time and she, well, wasn't.

He seemed to realize, and corrected himself. "Ever since I first saw you."

"When you started watching me," she surmised, kind of curious. He'd never told her much about that.

"Yes," he replied, and he seemed distantly reminiscent. "I wasn't even in this vessel yet."

She thought about that. He would have just been an invisible, benevolent spirit, a flash of light at the corner of her eyes... and suddenly, Alex went still as she had a sudden idea, an unexpected epiphany. She thought out loud, not sure why she hadn't realized before. Her voice rose as she spoke in emphatic conviction. "You know… I think I _saw_ you sometimes, Cas."

"What?" he asked, looking at her intently and she was nodding, thinking hard and off in her own little world for the moment, recalling what she'd forgotten.

"I remember sometimes, random times, seeing these bright lights at the edge of my vision, especially after Dean died... but when I looked… there was nothing there." She looked at him in complete awe. "That was _you_, wasn't it?"

He seemed flabbergasted, completely blown away by what she was saying. "That's not supposed to be possible..." he became deeply thoughtful and even a little troubled. "How could you have been able to_ see_ me?"

"I don't know, you tell me," she said, shaking her head and shrugging, because she had no clue. "I remember thinking I needed glasses or had eye cancer or was just losing my mind."

He took the information in and pondered it, then looked at her questioningly. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I don't think I actually thought about it or put it together until right now," she said, still pretty stunned by the revelation, herself. She made a face that was colored by chagrin. "And hey. Let's be honest. You and I haven't always have that much time for long heart to hearts." She paused, growing introspective. "There's a lot I've never gotten to tell you. And a lot I still wanna ask you about."

He was stuck on the fact that she could see him, in however small of a way. "I didn't know you could_ see me._.." Cas said, almost to himself.

"And I didn't know an angel was watching over me and comparing me to stars in the sky," Alex countered playfully, lightly. But what he said next wiped her coy little smile right off her face.

"There _is _no compare," he stated factually. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." He looked at her simply, unassumingly, like he expected her to say _yes, I know that I am, proceed!_ or something like that.

But she sat there with her mouth hanging open and entire body steeped in a stunned, gorgeous buzz by what he'd just said. Still, she felt like she must have misheard or something. "Uh... what?" She managed and then, "_Me_?"

He looked mildly perplexed at her reaction. "You don't think so?"

She took a second to reply. "Uh… I… no one's ever called me beautiful before, except Ellen, but I mean… that was different."

"I don't understand," Cas said, looking at her with one of those squinty frowns of his. "What do you think you are, if not beautiful?"

She felt extremely put on the spot. She thought of her long face and plain features and unremarkable figure and mousy brown hair and total lack of fashion sense. "I dunno… ordinary? Boring? Not very interesting?"

Cas looked at her almost like she was crazy. "No. You're none of those things."

She shrugged self-consciously, because she'd had no real reason to ever believe she was anything special until Castiel. "I mean no one's ever really paid much attention to me," she tried to explain. "No one's ever…" her gaze faltered, "looked at me the way you do."

He seemed interested in what she'd just said, studying her closely. "How is it that I look at you?" Cas seemed perplexed, like he didn't even know, and Alex wasn't even sure how to put it into words. "Like…" she looked off into middle distance, thinking about it. She felt shy all of the sudden, and couldn't look at him. "Like you _see me_. Really see me. Like you look at me and see something…" she trailed off, realizing. That the way he looked at her could be compared to someone taking in a starry night sky, a glorious sunrise, a firework show. Like he was beholding something _beautiful_. "I, um, I don't think I know how to put it into words," she hedged, uncomfortable knowing that he saw her that way.

"Why are you flushed?" he asked her, furthering her discomfort. "Have I embarrassed you?"

She tried to be nonchalant, tried to brush it off. "I just feel a little weird about this conversation," she said honestly, trying to chuckle and smile. Her attempt at an _I'm-fine-everything's-fine_ smile fell and she looked down at her hand where it rested on her thigh. She fought hard to tell him why, but couldn't quite make it happen. "I don't understand why an angel would… think I'm… would want to… with me." And she didn't. She'd thought it a million times and believed it: she was unremarkable and not important, forgettable and strange, not even that pretty. But Castiel seemed to think otherwise. He reached over and covered her hand with his, gingerly, and she looked up at him, surprised at the emotion filling his eyes.

He looked deeply vulnerable, which scared Alex, made her go entirely still. "Nothing ever meant anything to me until you," he told her, every soft word said with purpose and intention and deep meaningfulness, despite the audible fear he harbored about speaking it aloud. Speechless, completely out of words, she stared at him, unable to believe he'd just said that to her, feeling outside of herself almost. Cas looked down to their hands, his expression intense. "I existed for millennia in this crowded universe, and I was alone." He seemed to have thought about it a lot. His eyes slid back up to hers. "I don't feel alone when I'm with you."

She felt such a deep sense of connection when he said that, because what he said was an echo of what her soul felt—she'd never been alone per say, but she'd always been lonely, out on the edge and knowing that she was missing something… and she'd come to realize that it was him. When he was there at her side, when they were together, she felt part of something, felt like she belonged completely. It was intense and overwhelming and _everything _to her and she was suddenly terrified to lose it completely—all she ever did was lose things, people, relationships—it was her curse. She felt like she could cry again, her emotions were in such a sudden whipped up frenzy. "I don't want you to leave me," she blurted out, filled to the brim with fear that he, too, would walk away and desert her.

Castiel was literally taken aback by the unexplained pleading statement—he sat back a few inches, looking at her with what he was sure was a stunned expression. And he saw how helpless and alone and scared she looked, and it worried him that she was felt that way. He couldn't let her feel that way, he felt almost alarmed that she did. "I _won't_," he told her in no uncertain terms, trying to convey himself and his devotion in the way he spoke the words, but Alex just became more upset—however, it was in that unsettling, quiet way she had. "You don't understand. I lose everyone," she said miserably. Her eyes were becoming distant, like she was fading away from him. "_Everyone._"

His hand still rested on hers and he tightened his fingers through hers, jolting her back from wherever her mind was going. "No. Not everyone," he told her, wishing he knew a way to really reassure her that he wouldn't leave her—not now, and not ever. She didn't look convinced, she just looked fearful—and Cas felt abysmal. He didn't know how to comfort her or show her that he meant it: he wasn't going to leave. How could he prove it? How could he show her? He moved his hand from hers to put his arm around her shoulder, hesitating, because he wasn't sure if she would accept or reject the gesture. He didn't have to wonder long, because even before his arm stopped moving, she responded as if that was what she'd been waiting for—she leaned into him, hugging her arms around his middle, putting her head against the front of his shoulder, nestling against him. Cas could feel how tensely she held herself, and he knew that she was deeply distressed and distracted, unsure.

He realized with a sinking feeling of sadness that maybe he never could fully convince her that he would stay, that he had _decided_, that it didn't matter to him what the future brought, as long as he could remain at her side, protecting her. He supposed he could understand how she was so hesitant to believe him. She'd lived a life where she'd been told so many things and let down countless times. And now, what Dean had done… Castiel's blood felt hot and angry underneath his skin, and he tightened his hold on her. He realized that she felt so beautiful there against him, and he wasn't sure how something could_ feel _beautiful… but she did. He remembered how she'd felt beautiful from the inside out, when he'd been with her at the Vatican. At the unbidden memories of her like that, Castiel felt as though the night had become ten degrees warmer, and like the collar of his shirt was too tight against his neck.

He thought of what she had made him feel, the place she'd taken him to, the complete dependence he'd felt on her in that moment. And he wondered how that could have really been them, how it had happened. Because he wondered if it could happen _again_, and if it did happen again, would it happen differently? Was he supposed to initiate it? How? If it happened again, would it feel the same? Would it still hurt her, or would it just make her feel good? Would it comfort her like it had comforted him? Because in the Vatican, being with her, letting her have him like that had brought him relief from an ailment he hadn't realized he'd had. He wondered that if tonight, if he laid them down there in the bed of this truck, if she'd let him have her again, let him give her the only thing he knew how to: himself. And growing uncomfortable and embarrassed at himself, Castiel felt his jaw tighten.

Was it wrong to have these thoughts about her?

_It's not wrong to want to be close to someone_, she'd told him a few minutes ago. _Especially if you care about them._

Care. That wasn't the right word, it wasn't strong enough. In fact, no word that he could think of was right or correct or carried the weight of the what it was he felt for her. He felt her shift slightly in his arms and he tilted his head down toward hers, his lips brushing against the hair at the crown of her head. He didn't know what else to do but to tell her. "I won't leave you," he said, and her arms tightened around him.

How could either have known that what he'd just said, even though he meant it, wouldn't turn out to be true?

A few minutes later, Sam would return to find them like that—feet dangling over the end of the truck tailgate, arms wrapped around each other. He would always remember the sight of them like that as the headlights of the stolen car he was driving washed over them. Sam Winchester realized that night, after seeing them like that together, that Castiel _loved_ his sister. There was just no other way to say it or put it, there was no going back from that conclusion for Sam. It was almost frightening to him to see the angel hold his sister like that, and he wasn't sure why, only that the intensity and quiet fierceness that Cas exuded and held Alex with was staggering to look at.

* * *

**The Next Morning**

**Battle Creek, Michigan**

Sam let out a heavy, stressed out sigh, kept one hand on the steering wheel of the stolen Jeep while he rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work out a sore knot that had built up there overnight. He glanced into the rear view, saw Alex looking out the window, Cas beside her. They had been driving around Battle Creek for a couple hours now, looking for Dean the old fashioned way: trying to spot the Impala. Sam was actually beginning to get worried that he wasn't even _in_ this town at all. He'd called Bobby and let him know what was going on, asked him to keep an ear out for any leads. But truthfully, Sam felt almost hopeless. He was so devastated that Dean would do this. Even if they_ did_ find him, what if it was too late? And if it wasn't too late, what if Dean refused to get down off the proverbial ledge?

Sam felt so foul at the thought of Dean. This was just unfair to everyone, this was the definition of fucked up. He didn't understand why Dean thought saying yes to Michael would do anyone any good. Didn't he remember about how Lucifer was supposed to be present for the angelic boxing match, too? Didn't he remember that Sam was under _no circumstances_ saying yes, especially not _now_? He'd made his mind up a long time ago to fight tooth and nail not to let the devil have him, ever.

Sam scanned the parking lot of another motel they cruised by, hopeful to see the familiar sleek black shape of his brother's car—but, nothing. In the back seat, Alex was looking at the side and back of Sam's head anxiously, and he saw it when he glanced into the rear view mirror again. _Jesus, Dean, how could you do this to us?_

Sam wasn't used to being the one in charge. Not that he wasn't a take-charge kind of guy, but with Dean, there was only room for one leader. Sam had basically never been in charge of the family or in charge of taking care of his twin—not like Dean had. So today he was trying not to crack under the pressure he was putting on himself to find his brother, save the world, and keep his family safe. He'd been trying to focus on one small step at a time. Steal a car. Get to Battle Creek. Track down Lisa. Make sure Alex didn't fall apart, make sure Cas rested up and got better as fast as possible. He'd actually told Sam a few hours ago he thought he was well enough to start shazaming around again, but Sam told him to save it for when they found Dean, just in case it weakened him again.

Sam felt his stress tripling as they passed a bar. No Impala. They'd gone to see Lisa as soon as they got into town and found out Dean had told her goodbye, basically. Sam was close to panicking. Where the hell was Dean? There were only so many bars and motels and gas stations in this town, and they'd driven by most of them twice now.

Seeing Lisa again had been weird, brought back a lot of memories for Sam. She'd been shocked to see them, and then maybe a little affronted and weirded out when Cas had asked within her earshot, "this is the woman who Dean loves?"

It was weird how Cas could be so innocent and childlike in his cluelessness one minute, then intense at frightening levels at other times. Maybe that's why Sam felt the beginnings of worry when it came to Cas and Alex. Because he wasn't entirely sure what the guy was capable of. But, if Cas loved Alex—and Sam knew he did—he knew that the angel would never hurt her. Sam wished Dean could see the two of them right now, actually. Alex distracted and worried, Cas watchful and attentive, worried about _her_. As they'd driven all night, the two of them hadn't said much, had just stayed close to each other. Alex had fallen asleep for about four hours, and Cas's shoulder had been her pillow.

Even if it was probably the oddest pairing on the planet, Sam could appreciate the fact that someone obviously cared so much about his baby sister's wellbeing. He didn't understand why Dean couldn't. If Dean was going to flip his shit over seeing a kiss or whatever, Sam didn't even want to know what Dean would have done if he'd seen what Sam had, in the kitchen of that restaurant—_eugh_. Sam got embarrassed, fast, remembering Cas and Alex making out against the wall. Dean would probably have murdered Castiel point blank if he'd seen _that_.

Sam thought about how protective Dean was, how _over_protective… and how it made zero sense how he thought walking away and leaving them right now was the right thing to do. Had Dean lost his mind? Had he literally gone insane? Sam was so harrowed by the entire thing. His only hope was that he could talk some sense into his brother when… _if_… they found him.

He slowed down as they drove by another motel parking lot. He scanned the cars parked there, desperate to see the familiar sight of the Impala.

* * *

**Mike's Travel Inn, Room 100**

Dean folded up his beloved, worn out leather jacket and set it down into the brown box. He drew his keys out of his back pocket, looked down at them, feeling an unexpected twinge—Alex's old silver whistle dangled from the silver loop, next to the couple of keys he owned. His chest clenched in pain, and he closed his fingers around the whistle and keys, taking a moment, and then tossing them down on top of the jacket. He took his gun out of his waistband and removed the magazine, checked it for bullets, snapped it back in and set the pistol in there beside the keys. And that was it. These things were what he would leave behind.

Dean wondered how the hell these three little things were all that would be left of him when he was gone—and only one of them was actually his. The gun. The jacket? That was Dad's. The whistle? That was Alex's.

If Dean had been an optimist, he wouldn't be doing this, packing his things and preparing to leave a letter for the people he loved. But he wasn't an optimist, he was a realist. Yeah, Michael had said he'd spare Dean and maybe he would. But Dean wasn't banking on it—he didn't exactly trust angels or take them at their word. Basically, he didn't foresee himself coming back from what he was about to do. And it sucked a lot, but in his mind, he was taking one for the team and saving the people that he could.

Dean poured himself some strong whiskey, took a sip of the familiar amber liquid. It burned good. If nothing else, he was gonna make sure Michael agreed to some specific things. Guarantees of safety. For Lisa and Ben, Bobby. And for his baby sister, who needed someone to look after her more than almost anyone. He thought of how stupid she was, how shortsighted. There was a painful feeling in the bottom of his throat when he thought about leaving her alone. He'd promised he never would.

Forcing himself to focus, Dean pulled a chair up to the little motel table, took a pen up in his hand and pulled a sheet of motel letterhead to himself. He paused, the reality of what he was doing coming over him all over again.

He began to write.

_Sam, Alex, and Bobby—_

_Given what's about to happen, I'll be surprised if this package ever finds you. But if it does, I want you three to know that what I'm doing isn't about giving up. John taught us better than that. This is about time. We've run out of it._

_Left the Impala in Cicero. Where I'm going, we don't need roads. I know you'll look after her for me. Bobby—you've taken more for the team than anyone could ever ask. That makes you an honorary Winchester in my book._

_Sam. You told me once that you pray every day. Not sure if that's still true. Probably isn't, but if it is, give it one last try for me. And Sammy—one Winchester lost to this fight is enough. When it's over, after you've said yes and given in to Lucifer, I want you to know I'm gonna make good on what we talked about. You won't be alone at the end. I love you and I'm sorry it had to end this way, but at least it'll be the two of us together, right? _

_Alex. Words can't say how much I love you. Please believe me when I say that everything I ever did was me trying to protect you. Hopefully what I'm about to do will make up for all the times I failed. I know it's hard to understand, but I'm not just doing this for the greater good—I'm also doing it for you. I know you don't believe me but I just want what's best for you. I mean that. Like I always told you, kiddo: keep your chin up, your head down, your aim straight. Know that I'm proud of you. _

_If I come back from this, I don't expect any of you to forgive me, and that's okay. I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do. You all know what a stubborn son of a bitch I am, so I hope you believe me when I say I didn't want to do this, and honestly, as I write this letter, I still don't. I'd rather stay here, with you three. But that's not an option anymore. I know that me saying 'no' to Michael is what causes all that crap in 2014. I've decided I can't let that version of tomorrow happen. So, here's to a brighter future. _

_Give 'em hell, kids, and have a cold one for me sometimes. _

— _Dean_

It wasn't the best letter in the world, it left miles of things unsaid, but it would have to do. He folded it up, put it in an envelope and set it on top of everything he'd packed up in the box of his personal effects. He sealed the box slowly, taking his time. Like he'd said in the letter, he wasn't eager to do this. Not at all. And he kept catching sight of himself in the mirror above the dresser and feeling despicable. No letter would ever make Sam or Alex understand. Especially Alex. He knew how abandoned she'd feel, and it caused him so much pain that he had to stop and bring a hand to his face. He'd promised Dad he'd always take care of Sammy and Al, and_ look_ at him. He was leaving them to the mercy of the world, he was accepting the fact that Sam would be Lucifer's vessel, he was leaving Alex without even saying goodbye—taking off after one of the worst, if not _the _worst fight they'd ever had. And he thought of the three of them playing army men in the back of the car on long road trips and shoving Legos into the crevices of the Impala and racing each other up and down motel hallways and sharing candy late at night when Dad wasn't there and Alex blowing him smoochy kisses when she'd been really little and Sam screaming with victorious glee the one time he beat Dean at arm wrestling. And Dean lost it for a minute, crying shamefully, quietly, hating the sound of his shuddering breaths. He tightened his hand on his face. He was overwhelmed with knowledge of what he was losing, walking away from. The family that he loved with everything he had.

After a minute, Dean forcefully composed himself, finished taping the box shut, addressed it to Bobby, decided to pour himself some more whiskey. He wasn't too affected by the stuff anymore, but it was worth a shot to try and dull the pain. And then heard a sound behind himself. He looked up into the mirror and was shocked at what he saw.

"What, are you sending someone a candy-gram?" Sam asked, and Dean turned to face his siblings—Sam looked grim and disappointed, Alex like she might literally kill him. And the sight of them—he thought he'd laid eyes on them for the last time—almost broke him.

"How'd you find me?" he asked hollowly, not letting them see how deeply affected he was. And then without warning Alex went apeshit, lunged at him across the dividing space and socked him across the face with so much vicious force that he stumbled backwards and subsequently knocked everything off the little motel table.

Shocked at the wallop the punch had packed, Dean reeled, just barely remaining on his feet, automatically clutching at his face—he could taste blood, somehow he'd bitten the inside of his mouth or something. "Holy _shit_, Alex!" Dean exclaimed, looking at his fuming little sister in a mixture of indignant anger and slightly impressed surprise at how good of a swing she could throw. "_Jesus_!" he gingerly touched his jaw.

"Don't act like you don't deserve that," she spat at him, livid and trembling, madder than he'd seen her in a long, long time. "What the_ hell_ are you doing?"

Dean glanced at Sam, who stood off, looking chagrined. And he was so overwhelmed with grief, because he realized there just wasn't a way for him to explain it. Not really. And he couldn't afford to let them in, or see how he was really feeling. If he was gonna do this, he had to make them think he was an asshole. It'd make it easier on all of them, in the end. "I'm doing what I _have_ to do," Dean told her, reverting to his cold demeanor.

"No one makes Dean Winchester do anything," she challenged him, and he looked down. She would have been right about that up until recently.

"You're going to kill yourself, right?" Sam asked quietly, and Dean let out an jaded breath.

"I'm not going to kill myself."

"No? You told me you're gonna let Michael make you his Muppet… that's basically kissing your life goodbye, Dean." Sam shook his head, disgusted. "What the hell, man? This is how it ends? You just… walk out on us?"

"Yeah, I guess," Dean said apathetically, and then saw Alex's jaw clench, her fists curl in, and he leaned away from her, eyeing her closely. "Easy, tiger, not the face," he told her, and got a dirty look as she crossed her arms and stalked a few steps off, as if to contain herself.

Sam came closer, his expression full of accusing anger. "How could you do that, Dean? Leave us like that?"

And all the tender things Dean had been feeling for his siblings a minute ago were forgotten in favor of indignant anger. "How could _I_?" Dean asked, unable to believe _Sam_ of all people would ask him that. It sparked sudden anger in him, because Sam wasn't the one who knew what it felt like to be abandoned—that was _Dean_. "All you've _ever_ done is run away!" he said loudly, and Sam's face fell guiltily.

"Oh so that makes it okay?" Alex asked him, and her bitchy tone really pushed some of Dean's buttons, because no, oh _no_, he had _not_ forgotten about their little talk outside the church or the sight of her kissing Cas. He looked at her bitterly, feeling ganged up on, hopeless, angry, helpless.

"You know, you're a lot of big talk Al, but you're not in my shoes. If I remember right, you've run away too, remember? Where was all your self-righteous crap then?" He almost sneered at this point. "And by the way, where's your precious boyfriend? Left like usual, didn't he?"

She bristled at his comment but said nothing, clamped her mouth into a thin line. Sam was getting heated at this point. "Listen Dean. I was _wrong, _okay? Every single time I ran away!" He took his hands out of his pockets, tried to calm himself down. "Just… please." He gave Dean his best sad eyes, and Dean vaguely thought man, if eyebrows could win academy awards for best performance. "Not now," Sam was imploring. "Bobby is working on something."

"Oh, really?" Dean said, not believing Sam's bullshit simpering act for a second. "What, huh? Enlighten me." Sam said nothing, just looked down. "You two got nothing and you know it," Dean said darkly.

"Maybe we don't," Alex said. "But we _will_."

Her fighting spirit was admirable but unforunately wasted on him. "No... we won't," he told her unpleasantly, then set them both with an immovable, decided look. "Guys—my mind's made up. I'm doing this, like it or not."

"Not gonna happen," Sam said quietly, and his eyes jumped up to Dean's. "You know we have to stop you. "

Dean nodded, accepting that _this_ was where it was gonna have to go. "Yeah, well, you can try," he told them, and there was a great, weighty sadness on his shoulders as he looked between the two of them. He didn't want to have to do this. Trying to dissuade them, he looked at Sam pointedly. "Just remember: You're not all hopped up on demon blood this time, Sam. And Barbie over there—yeah, she got the jump on me a minute ago, but she isn't exactly a heavyweight."

"We're not gonna fight you Dean," his sister said, to which he shrugged, his mouth pressing into a hard line.

"You're gonna have to," he told her.

"No. We're not," Sam said. "You're gonna come nice and quiet."

Dean chuckled just barely, a short and airy sound. They had another thing coming if they really thought that he was gonna just go with them. "Says who?" he asked.

And then behind him, a familiar, deep voice. "Says me."

Dean whipped around to find Castiel standing behind him, and before Dean could even open his mouth, he felt Cas's fingers touching to his forehead—and then the world went pitch black.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ Crying. Screaming. MOSTLY CUZ I KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE NEXT CHAPTER DFLKGJDFGLKJFDG HOLY CRAP CAKES HAAHHAA NOPE. Adam. Dean being a dead-inside jackass. Calex umm stuff and things. ADAM. And also ADAMMMMMM._

_OH YEAH BTW HOMEGIRL ALEX THANK YOU FOR PUNCHING DEAN WE ALL APPRECIATE IT BUT NOW HUG HIM OK CUZ THAT LETTER HE WROTE UGHHHH Gaaah I hope you guys liked this chapter. The starry night sky scene just… I just… *hugs it forever* I can't. These two, amirite. _

_BTW YOU GUYS CRAZY: In Point of No Return, in the scene where Dean is packing his belongings? THERE IS A FRIGGING SILVER WHISTLE ON HIS KEYCHAIN. Watch the episode omgomgomg Alex is real and the whistle proves it. I am definitely not insane. _


	35. Runs in the Family

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 35 / Runs in the Family

"_And my scars remind me that the past is real." _  
- Papa Roach

* * *

Bobby Singer wasn't having what you'd call the best day. Hell, he wasn't having what you'd call the best _year_. He'd lost movement in both of his legs, was stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, had been forced to kill his wife all over again last month—something a man should never have to do once, let alone _twice_—and now? Now Sam had called to let him know that Dean was being a damn fool—running off to say yes to Michael. Of all the things Bobby had been expecting to hear Sam say… that hadn't been it.

What _the hell_ was the kid thinking?

It had been a few hours since Sam had called and Bobby would be pacing if his damn legs worked. He'd resigned himself instead to shuffling through some notes and newspaper clippings he was compiling. It sure felt good to be so damn useless, he thought cynically. He thought of Dean, Sam, Alex. Those poor, crazy kids. As it it weren't bad enough to be them, add to it the mess they were in these days. They'd had such a shit excuse for a childhood and a sorry excuse for a father in John Winchester.

Like father, like son, Bobby thought somberly. Both of them tough as nails and twice as sharp, both of them stubborn as a mule. Both of them running off on the family at the worst time possible. What bothered Bobby is that he had expected a hell of a lot more from Dean. 'Course, he didn't know the full story of _why_ in the sam hill Dean would think saying yes to Michael was a good idea, unless he'd given up hope on other options, but that was the thing… that just didn't seem like Dean to give up. Ever. Bobby hoped Dean had some other explanation for what he was doing.

Morning light streamed in through the window and Bobby leaned over his desk and the clutter on it, fighting a massive headache. Time was just running short, he felt it. He'd been feeling it for awhile now, this looming feeling that the grand finale was coming closer and closer. But he pushed past the urge to give up ever day, refusing to throw in the towel.

At that very moment, three people suddenly appeared. Sam—supporting an unconscious, slumped over Dean—and Castiel, a hand on Sam's shoulder.

Startled, Bobby sat back in his wheelchair. "Dammit, boys!" he exclaimed. "A little heads up woulda been nice," he said, to which Sam mumbled "sorry, Bobby," while he set Dean down onto the pullout cot Bobby had set up in the office to sleep in. Bobby paused, frowned. "Wait, where's Alex?"

"On her way," Cas said, and disappeared without further explanation. Bobby stared at the empty space the angel had just been standing in. Well that was just plain disconcerting, no matter how many times he saw it.

"She's still in Battle Creek, getting the rest of Dean's crap together and into the Impala," Sam explained wearily, standing over his brother and running a hand through his hair.

Bobby wheeled himself from behind his desk, looking Dean over. "So you found him," he said, stating the blessed obvious.

"Yeah. We did." Sam rubbed his palm down over his mouth, crossed his arms, sighed grimly. "This isn't good, Bobby," he said, and Bobby could tell Sam was deeply, deeply worried and afraid. "Not good at all." Sam shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over a chair. He seemed beat, drained, and totally wearied.

"Sit down, kid," Bobby said, gesturing to an empty chair, wishing he could take some of the load for Sam, help him somehow. "Tell me what happened."

Sam dragged the chair over and proceeded to give him the quick three-minute summary of how Dean had been acting strange for the past few weeks, how he'd been uncharacteristically hopeless and depressed and run off after spouting craziness about the angels and Michael and changing the future. Sam said that their confrontation with the Whore of Babylon had seemed to send him over the edge. "Well that and Cas and Alex," Sam was saying.

Cas and Alex? "What about 'em?" Bobby asked, to which Sam grew pensive.

"Their, uh… relationship."

Bobby squinted. "Come again?"

Sam looked unsure of what to say. "It's—" he stopped talking when they heard the front door open. Speak of the devils. Alex stormed around the corner and into the office, looking about as mad as a wet hen. Cas followed after her.

"Hey, did you guys abracadabra the car over?" Sam asked, but his sister stopped dead center of the room and ignored his question completely.

"He left a fucking _suicide_ note," she raged, waving a letter angrily at her side for emphasis. "I found it in that box of stuff he had at the motel."

Sam, who had stood up, held his hand out. "Hey. Calm down, all right?" he looked at her meaningfully. "It's okay now."

"Yeah sure it is," she muttered sullenly. Sam said nothing, but took the letter from her, read it over.

Bobby looked at Alex closely, noticed how when she and Cas exchanged a glance, her anger seemed to lessen, her shoulders seemed to relax, she visibly calmed down. What _relationship_? He was plain stumped at what Sam had said. That was the thing about the word relationship, it could carry a million and one definitions. Alex maybe felt Bobby's frowning stare and looked at him, seemed to remember her manners, finally. "Hi, Bobby," she said, sounding a little abashed at her outburst.

He gave her a wan little smile as hello and then looked at Cas, gave him a single nod. The angel seemed to realize he hadn't made a greeting, either. "Hello, Bobby," he intoned deeply, his eyes squinted into little slits. Hmm. _Hello yourself,_ Bobby thought, looking at the angel carefully, then wheeling himself back over to behind his desk, realizing today was about to get real interesting.

He picked up a newspaper clipping off of his desk, pretended to be reading it, but was really looking at Alex and Cas from underneath the brim of his ball cap, Cas especially. Bobby hadn't really noticed before because he'd always just glanced at Cas, not really _looked_ at him good and long. The angel was taller and bigger than Bobby remembered him being—and as the angel stood at the edge of the room, watchful and frowning as usual, Bobby realized he really wasn't that much shorter than Sam, maybe a few inches, and that the angel was built much more solidly than Bobby remembered.

Alex wasn't a small girl by any means, she was Bobby's height, just three proud inches under six feet tall—but her petite build made her look pretty unsubstantial at the moment as she stood between Cas and Sam. Bobby looked at his girl sadly. _His girl_—he thought that without even meaning to. He had a special place for all of the Winchester kids in his heart, but especially Alex. Karen had always wanted kids, had told Bobby she could see him with a little girl of his own. Bobby hadn't really agreed with her at the time, had been sure he'd be a failure as a dad, would end up being too much like _his_ old man. But these days, he looked at the Winchester bunch and felt like if he were ever to have kids… these three would be them.

Bobby recalled the months Alex had been with him after Dean died, remembered how beyond sad she'd been and how hard she'd tried to hide it from him. But how she hadn't been able. A couple times, she'd just suddenly come to him in tears, saying nothing, just crying on his shoulder. They'd never talked about it, but one night he'd found her with a gun out in the tool shed, and the way she'd been contemplating that thing… he'd taken it from her, told her "don't you _dare_." And that had been it. He'd never mentioned it or brought it up again. All her life, well, the entire time he'd known the family, he'd worried about her more than Sam and Dean, period, and these days weren't no different. So if Sam meant that this angel guy was_ interested_ in her, Bobby was immediately concerned and was going to make it his business to find out more as soon as he could. Cuz no man, angel, demon, _whatever_ gonna even think about touching that girl or being with her unless he had good—no, the_ best_—intentions.

Sam paced slowly, reading over the letter as Alex took her hooded jacket off and set it over where Sam's was. Predictably, she wore a flannel shirt underneath, sleeves rolled halfway up her arms. As usual, Cas didn't remove his jacket—he just stood there, hovering awkwardly at the edge of the room while Alex waited in the middle of the study with folded arms for Sam to finish reading. Bobby wondered offhandedly why Cas wore that damn trench coat twenty-four-seven. He really didn't know too much about the guy, had only seen him a few times. Unlike Sam and Dean, Bobby hadn't met any other angel than Cas—but from what the boys told him, Cas was the only one worth his weight. The only one that they could trust.

"_Wow_," Sam said, finishing the letter and shrugging his eyebrows up briefly, then coming over and handing the letter over the desk.

Bobby took it and scanned it fast—and as he digested the words written in Dean's bold, strong hand, his heart sank. The kid had really been about to do it, hadn't he? Bobby shook his head, disappointed as hell. But not one to foul up the mood, not one to let his inner despair show, he looked up, kept his voice and face neutral. "So what's the plan, kids?" he asked, setting the letter down when he'd finished it. "What are we gonna do with this idjit when he rises and shines?"

Sam and Alex looked at each other, then they both looked at Cas—his stern glare rested on Dean, who still was laid out on the cot, dead to the world for now. The halo usually looked stern, and such was the case today, but upon closer inspection, Bobby realized he was _angry_, but at a deeper and quieter level than the rest of them. It was a little unsettling, actually.

"I dunno," Sam finally said, his eyebrows pressing in toward each other as he threw his hands up briefly, seeming to have no real ideas. "Try and talk him out of it, I guess."

"You ever been able to talk him outta _anything_?" Bobby asked, sarcastically commenting on Dean's stubborn streak.

Sam's shoulders squared in frustration. "So we change his mind," Sam said, spreading his hands out for emphasis. "We find another way for us to kill the devil or stop the angels." Sam paused looked at Bobby hopefully. "Say you got something, Bobby. Anything."

Bobby looked at him grimly. He may have been a considerate man, but he wasn't a liar, and he wasn't about to give Sam false hope. "Son, I hate it but I ain't. I been runnin' ragged over here trying to find something—hell,_ anything_—but I got jack squat."

His words visibly hit both of the Winchesters hard, and Bobby could tell they hadn't wanted to hear that. "So you're saying Dean's right—that we don't have any options?" Sam asked in crushed disbelief.

Bobby paused, then tried the optimist's approach. "I'm sayin' I ain't _found _it yet." He gestured at his cluttered desk. "I got a few books in today that we can look through, some print outs from the internet... who's up for a read through of the Apocrypha?"

Sam didn't look thrilled, but he came over, dragged the chair he'd sat in before over to the side of Bobby's desk and took a seat, pulled a book off the top of a pile and studied the cover. Just then, a low, rumbling groan came from the cot, and everyone in the room turned to look at Dean, who was opening his eyes and coming to. "The hell?" he mumbled, looking around. He pushed himself up, his face already twisting from groggy confusion into an angry glare.

"Mornin', sunshine," Bobby commented gruffly, testing the waters. Dean shot him an unhappy look and then looked around at the occupants of the room suspiciously. While Castiel and Alex seemed decidedly hostile, Sam just looked at him sidelong, a little guiltily.

"What, we having an intervention?" Dean asked snidely.

"Do we _need_ to?" Bobby countered, getting an evil side eye.

"Dean, we brought you here because we're gonna find a solution, okay?" Sam said, setting down the book he'd been holding and drawing Dean's sullen attention. The brothers locked gazes, and there was a great amount of animosity there.

"A solution," Dean repeated churlishly.

Sam's jaw tensed and lofty sarcasm filled his voice. "Yeah. Something besides losing your friggin' mind, abandoning your family, and becoming the angel's newest show puppet." Sam was deeply unhappy with Dean and it showed.

Dean's jaw worked overtime in frustrated tension and he looked at his brother balefully. "Time's _running out_," he said emphatically, voice rising. "Don't you _get that_?"

"Yeah Dean, I _do_," Sam retorted with surprising intensity and great amounts of barely withheld anger. "Which is why we need to hold it _together_ and figure out another _way_."

For a second, Bobby wondered if the two brothers would leap across the distance separating them and start rolling around on the ground, trading punches. That's how intense the glares on their faces were. But then Dean sat back, rolled his eyes and sighed in sickened annoyance, apparently so disgusted that he couldn't speak any more to Sam. He stood up, made as if to walk out of the room—and Castiel moved, blocked the way out of the room.

Dean leveled the angel with a challenging, narrow-eyed stare. "What, I can't go get a beer out of the fridge?"

Cas's chin raised a fraction of an inch and his eyes further narrowed into slits. "No."

Bobby wondered if this was about to get physical as he watched the two guys stare each other down—Sam and Alex seemed to be wondering the same thing, looking tense and ready to jump forward at a second's notice. And then Dean looked over at Alex, who stood a little further off, in front of the other desk Bobby had against the far wall opposite of the window. "You wanna call your attack dog off of me?" he asked her darkly.

Bobby frowned at the way Dean said that, the way he looked at his sister so contemptuously—something was _off_. Alex said nothing—her eyes bored back into Dean's stormily, her mouth was set in a firm line. And when she made no reply, Dean rolled his eyes and turned away, paced back over across the room, back toward the window.

"Yeah, no, this is good," Dean commented disingenuously. "This is _great_. Really. Let's just sit here and read _books_." He gave a humorless chuckle and it was an almost angry sound. "Listen, you guys want to gank el Diablo, right? This is how we do it. _Me_."

Sam sat back in his chair, looked up at Dean thoroughly. "Aren't you forgetting that_ I'd _need to say yes too for that to happen?" He asked testily, to which his brother again chuckled.

"Oh no," Dean said, a bitter smile playing on his lips. "I haven't forgotten."

Sam's face twisted into hurt confusion. Dean ignored it. "Dean, this isn't you," Alex said, both angry and at a loss at his behavior. "Why are you being like this?"

He looked at her with eyes that seemed dead, cold. "Trust me, sweetheart. This _is_ me," he said flippantly, without feeling. "Get used to it."

Clearly having to control her temper, Alex looked down and shook her head, a plastered, pursed expression like a sickened smile stretched across her lips. She looked at lot like Sam at that moment. Beside her, Castiel was looking at her with a frown—his expression grew stormier when his eyes flickered over to Dean, who was folding his arms now, jutting his chin into the air. "I don't care what any of you say. I've made up my mind. It's been eight long ass months of turned pages and screwed pooches and total bullshit. I'm done, man." He spread his arms and grinned humorlessly. "Bring on the apocalypse."

Bobby was starting to get tired of Dean's attitude. "You wanna take it down a notch there, Ghandi?" He flipped a page of the book in front of him unseeingly. "You ain't helpin'."

Dean gave him a disrespectful little smile. "Yeah, well, why don't you let me get out of your hair, then?"

Bobby looked up and at Dean, square in the eye, studying him for a minute, disappointed and disillusioned at the way the kid was acting. "What the hell_ happened _to you?" he asked. Dean seemed to have expected the question.

"_Reality_ happened," he said forcefully, coming forward to stare at Bobby across the desk. He was becoming intensely angry. "Nuclear's the only option we have left—I'm trying to tell you—Michael can ice the devil, save a _boatload_ of people!"

"But not _all_ of 'em," Bobby replied evenly, firmly, not rising to Dean's level of confrontational rage. "We gotta think of something else."

Dean nodded shallowly, unhappy, looking from Bobby to Sam a few times, then in Castiel and Alex's direction, clearly pissed. He retreated back toward the wall he'd been standing against. "You guys sound like a broken record—there _is_ no plan B or opt out, and the longer we stall, the worse it gets!"

"Worse _what _gets?"

"What they do to my _family_!" Dean all by shouted, and Bobby didn't really get what Dean was hedging at. He sounded pretty far gone, to be honest. "And besides that, if Lucifer burns this mother down, and I coulda done something about it, guess what?" He gestured angrily at himself. "That's on _me_!"

Bobby saw the anger, but more than that, he saw fear. Lots of it. And gently now, he regarded Dean. "You can't _give up,_ son."

Dean's head rolled forward as he looked down, a cynical smile on his face and a soft little laugh escaping his lips. Bobby felt himself frowning a little, unsure what was so funny. And then Dean looked back up, his expression becoming cold with anger and something almost like loathing. "You're not my father," he told Bobby, and the entire room seemed to grow unnaturally quiet. Dean stared at Bobby bitterly. "And you ain't in my shoes."

Bobby felt like he'd been slapped in the face—Dean's words to him burning a very raw nerve, just like Dean had intended them to. And Alex's arms fell to her sides as she stared at her brother with a slack jaw, horrified at what he'd just said. "Dean! What the _fuck_?" she demanded, her features overwrought with severe disbelief, and then righteous anger. "Don't_ talk _to him like that!"

In response, her brother's angry seemed to triple and he looked at her almost hatefully. "You know what, just _can it_, princess," he retorted, staring down his nose at her with an accusing glare. "I've had it with all your little moral superiority bullshit lately—last time I checked, screwing around with an angel doesn't make you a saint."

Her mouth had dropped open at what he'd said—Sam was wide-eyed and looking at his brother in disbelief, Castiel's brows were knit together in deep confusion, Dean looked almost sick with anger, Bobby felt confused as all get out at the implication.

"What the hell is your _problem_?" Alex asked her brother, voice trembling with quiet rage.

"_My_ problem?" Dean asked in severe surprise, then he gestured at Cas, threw an arm in his direction. "He isn't a _man_, Alex!" Her eyebrows shot up in momentary shock, and then she became chillingly calm.

"Oh_ really?_" she asked, and sauntered closer to Dean, her voice dropping a couple notches in volume as she looked at him in disdain. "He's more of one than you've ever been," she said, shocking everyone with the cold and hateful way she said it.

Dean's expression was filled with quiet, rising fury."You shut your mouth," he said lowly, voice trembling, as if he were holding back.

"No,_ you _shut _your_ mouth!" she all but roared, suddenly at full volume again and angry as hell—Sam was standing up, appearing to be thinking about intervening—and Cas, who stood about five feet back from Alex looked uncertain about what to do, his concerned expression becoming more and more tension-filled—but Dean and Alex were oblivious to everything but each other.

"You act like you can just do whatever the hell you want to and tear this family apart and screw over everyone you supposedly love?!" Alex looked at him like she absolutely despised him. "You're fucking_ heartless_!"

Maybe it was a gut reaction, maybe it was an accident fueled by blind rage, maybe he didn't mean to do it exactly how he did. All Bobby knew is that the second she accused him of being heartless, Dean seemed to _snap_—his face became almost animalistic with violent fury, and in the space of a second, he grabbed his sister by the front of her shirt and with an enraged shout of "_That's not true_!" he blindly shoved her as hard as he could—she let out a cry of surprise and went hurtling back into the low bookshelf against the wall, back-first—there was a loud, heavy thud as she hit it, books went tumbling to the floor, and Alex would have fallen forward onto the ground from the shock of the impact, but Cas had moved startlingly fast and was in front of her, breaking her fall before she was even halfway down, catching her by grabbing her waist and letting her fall into him—her palms hit against his shoulders, and she instinctually clutched onto him. Startled and breathless, she looked at the angel, wide-eyed, and then at the same time, the two of them looked at Dean, whose face had fallen—he stood there, shocked, breathless, arms hanging at his sides limply.

"Dean, what the _hell_?!" Sam demanded, striding over to his brother and shoving him back toward the cot. Dean didn't react, just kept staring at his sister in abject horror, like he was in physical shock.

Bobby stared at Dean, so angry he could barely form a coherent thought. "Have you lost your damn mind, boy?!" If his legs weren't currently on layaway, Bobby would have slapped that damn kid so hard, his clothes would be out of style when he quit rolling.

Cas was holding Alex with what looked like utmost gentleness and worry, standing her up slowly from the strange forward-lean she'd been in against him, looking her over as if to assess any injuries, his expression shockingly concerned, hands now gently holding either of her arms. Dazed, Alex looked up at Cas, nodded silently, telling him she was okay to stand, Bobby guessed. Because Cas looked away from her at that point, and to Dean. And his expression was absolutely, undeniably _murderous_.

"Al, I'm sorry, I—" Dean started, trying to look at his sister, trying to make Sam move away from in front of him—and then suddenly Sam was knocked aside and Dean was lifted off his feet—Cas had him by the front of his shirt in one hand and he whirled him, slammed him painfully into the wall of the office, and there was a loud sound from the impact—cracking and crumbling.

Dean was groaning loudly, disoriented from the brutal attack—his shoulders had broken through the dry wall completely from the force Castiel used. His feet dangled off the ground as Cas's fists tightened into his shirt. The angel's face was twisted, almost a snarl. "How dare you lay a hand on her—" Cas demanded in a low, furious growl.

"Cas, whoa, whoa," Sam said, approaching them and attempting to a get Cas to calm down, holding his hands out appeasingly, maybe about to try and break the two apart—but Cas looked at Sam and Sam froze, a shocked look on his face as he suddenly slid back several inches across the floor without moving his feet at all, as if he'd been invisibly pushed. Bobby watched, wide-eyed, unsure what the hell was happening.

"_Uh_, _Christ_," Dean groaned in pain, and then uselessly grabbed Cas's wrists, tried to pry the angel off himself. Cas's expression just darkened and he took Dean, pulled him forward, out of the wall, and then slammed him back in.

"Cas stop!" Alex cried, and the angel froze, seemed to come out of some sort of trance, looked at her. She had come to his side and was looking at him almost fearfully. She looked from him to Dean, who looked back at his sister, shamefaced. Her face became less fearful and more contemptuous, sad even. "He's not worth it," she said bitterly, and Dean looked heartbroken. Cas hadn't moved a muscle, and Alex looked back at him. "_Please_."

The angel held her gaze, a muscle jerked in his jaw, he looked back at Dean… and then let go, allowing Dean to drop to the ground at his feet. Dean caught himself on his hands, looked up from all fours at Cas, out of breath, expression distorted by pain. "The next time you touch her like that, I won't stop," Castiel told him in no uncertain terms, a bold, open threat. His voice lowered. "Do you understand me?"

Dean must have taken too long to reply, because he was suddenly dragged to his feet. "_Answer _me," Castiel demanded, and Dean stared at him, breathing hard.

"Yeah I _understand_ you," Dean spat, after staring at Cas hard for a couple beats. Cas looked back and forth between his eyes and then roughly let go. The two of them stared at each other, full of animosity, and Bobby felt like he was starting to get what Sam meant about _relationship_. He sat there, looking at the hole in his damn wall and the way that everyone in the damn room was at each other's throats, and got mad, mad as hell.

"Okay, look, someone wanna tell me what the sam hill—" Bobby started, and then was cut short when Cas suddenly hunched over, grabbing his head as if in pain, a horrible, sharp groan of pain breaking through his gritted teeth.

"What's wrong?" Alex asked him, her face full of fear and shock—she'd immediately taken hold of one of his arms with both of her hands when he bent over, maybe trying to help him stand. He was grimacing painfully, and looked at her speechlessly, a hand still on his head.

"Cas, you okay?" Sam asked cautiously, and the angel looked at him with a rigid expression, his hand falling away from his face. "No." He gave no further explanation.

"What is it?" Alex asked him intensely, and she sounded gravely, increasingly worried. He frowned deeply, staring at the space ahead of himself gravely. "Something's happening."

"What? _What_'s happening?" she asked, beginning to panic, and he looked at her finally.

"I'll find out." He looked at Dean darkly, then at her, then at Sam, who gave a subtle little nod at Cas. "Stay with Sam," Castiel told her intensely, and then with a blast of wind, he disappeared completely, leaving a very shocked Alex standing there. Papers fluttered wildly.

Dean, who was now sitting on the cot, leaning heavily over his knees and clearly in a good amount of pain, looked at the twins in disbelief, getting what Cas had meant when he said that to Sam. That Sam needed to protect Alex from Dean. "The hell does he think he is?" he muttered angrily, to which Sam gave his brother one of those _are-you-fucking-kidding-me _glares.

"The hell do you think_ you _are?" Sam challenged, and then turned to his sister, looked her over and held her by either upper arm, studying her closely. "You okay?" he asked her, and she didn't say anything to him, just looked up at him with big, unreadable eyes.

Alex looked at Dean sidelong, appearing to be betrayed and not so much angry as heartbroken. Dean's face was filled with regret and shame at that point, and he dropped the tough guy act. "I'm sorry, I just—I got mad…" he said pathetically, and he repeated himself, softer. "I got mad." His voice broke, he looked up at his sister pleadingly, like he wanted her to forgive him and _comfort_ him even. But she shook her head, looked at him with eyes that shone with unshed tears.

"Like father like son, right?" she asked him in a soft, cynical voice, a certain note of sad, embittered accusation in her voice.

Dean's face fell completely. "Don't say that," he said, voice trembling, but this time with horrified denial. He stood up, and he looked close to tears almost. "Don't you say that," he begged.

When he stood up, she shrank back a little, and he saw that she reacted to him that way—he stopped short, and looked absolutely stricken. Sam looked unsure as to what his siblings were talking about—but from the way they were looking at each other, it was clear that there were volumes of meaning behind what Alex had just said to Dean, and that he understood her meaning perfectly, and whatever it meant devastated him.

"It wasn't—I didn't _mean_ to—" Dean tried, fumblingly, and Alex looked almost insulted.

"Isn't that what _he_ would always say?" she asked, and Dean looked sickened. His gaze went to the floor.

"What are you two _talking _about?" Sam asked, looking between the two of them in confusion.

And Bobby, who had a pretty good idea of what they were talking about—he knew how John got when he was drunk. He knew how John was, period: angry, bitter, obsessed to the point of moral blindness. But it made him sick to hear his long-standing theory confirmed. He shook his head as helpless, righteous anger surged forth inside and he thought about how Sam had violently assaulted his sister a few months ago, how Dean had just shoved her brutally, how John apparently had done something similar. "You Winchester men are somethin' else, you know that?" Bobby muttered.

Sam stood there staring at his twin as his mind raced, trying to figure out what the hell she and Dean were going on about, what Bobby was saying. Because it almost sounded like they were saying Dad had… _wait_. Sam suddenly stopped, felt like his blood went cold. He looked at his twin in dawning horror. "You don't mean…" he started, and she tore out of his arms, her face cold and expressionless.

"Just leave me _alone_," she said, and went into the kitchen, leaving Sam to stare after her, wordless, then look at Dean for an explanation.

There was a long, tense silence, and Dean looked older than he was, heavy with thoughts of the past. "Why do you think I never left her alone, _ever_, huh Sammy?" Dean asked, and his voice was layered with sadness, guilt, anger. "Why do you think that one road trip in ninety-nine I took by myself was the only one? The _last_ one?" He sat down on the cot and looked down, leaned his arms onto his knees and put his head in his hands. Sam just stared, open mouthed, remembering. Realizing.

"_Man, I'm telling you, she was all bendy like Gumby, this chick," Dean was saying to sixteen-year-old Sam, who laughed a little awkwardly at how Dean was describing this Lisa girl. "She was seriously an eleven, dude," Dean said, throwing his bag down on the motel bed. He'd just gotten back from a weeklong solo road trip and was clearly on cloud nine. Dad was still out on an ammo run._

_Behind them, they heard the door open, and Dean turned around, knowing it'd be his sister walking in. "Hey tiger, did ya miss m—" his grin froze and then fell when he saw that she had a huge bruise on the side of her face. He looked horrified and shocked and he went to her immediately, dropping what he'd been doing to take her face in his hands and examine the bruise. "What the hell?" he asked, sounding quiet and scared. "You okay, kiddo?" he asked her gently, and she seemed embarrassed by his question, just rolled her eyes goodnaturedly, pushed his hands away, silently saying 'yes Dean, I'm fine…' but Dean was getting riled, looked back at Sam in disbelief and anger. "I told you not to leave her _alone_, Sam! You _promised_!" _

_It had been all of a minute and Dean was already mad at him, as usual, and Sam became defensive. "I went to the movies with some friends I met at school—she didn't wanna go and I didn't see a reason to stay and be bored when I could be out having fun…" Dean looked positively pissed and Sam got angry at how unreasonable his brother was being. "Come _on_ Dean. Dad was with her when she fell down the stairs… I couldn't have stopped it from happening if I were here if _he_ couldn't have."_

"_Yeah sure," Dean said darkly, implying that Sam_ could _have and _didn't _and was the scum of the earth. Sam shrugged his hands up and stared at his brother, frustrated and wondering why he could never please anyone in this family. Dean turned away from him and gave his attention to his sister, who, as always, remained silent. She looked like she was feeling guilty about something and Dean pulled her into a hug—Sam watched them with the beginning pangs of jealousy. Dean always did that, treated her like a princess and then treated him like he was a stupid screw up. "I'm not gonna leave you alone again, okay?" Dean told her, and Sam rolled his eyes, completely fed up with his older brother's ridiculously overprotective nature. "She's not made of _glass_, Dean, come on, it's just a little bruise!" He rolled his eyes at this point, over it. "She'll be _fine_." Dean had just given him a furious glare. _

And now… now Sam understood.

Bobby was staring at Dean, who hadn't moved, whose head was in his hands as he stared down at the floor. "What, so you really done, kid? You just gonna walk out on us? On them?" He gestured at Sam, and then in the direction of the kitchen, where Alex had gone to.

Dean looked up at Bobby grimly. "It's not walking out, it's owning up. To what I gotta do."

"No," Bobby said, shaking his head in slow anger. "Giving up, that's what you're doin'."

"Call it whatever you want," Dean said flippantly, not seeming to care either way. Bobby was quiet a minute, then pulled a gun out of his desk, set it on the table. Dean watched out of the corner of his eye as Bobby took out the shining bullet he kept in his pocket, looked at it thoughtfully. "What is that?" Dean asked cautiously.

Bobby didn't look at him, just kept his eyes on the bullet. "This is the round that I mean to put through my skull." He set the bullet down on the desk in front of him. He had the boys rapt attention. "Every morning, I look at it. I think... 'maybe _today's_ the day I flip the lights out.' But I don't do it. I _never_ do it. You know why?" He looked at Dean and all the anger he felt was suddenly hurtling to the surface and he was shouting at full volume, letting loose in his rage. "Because I _promised_ _you_ I wouldn't _give up_!" Dean was silent, attempting to look like he wasn't surprised at the outburst, but he very clearly was. "So stow your selfish, hateful attitude and get with the program, junior!" Bobby continued, leaning over the desk and jabbing a finger at Dean. "Cuz there's a _helluva_ lot more at stake here than how you _feel_! Look at that boy and girl in there—you really gonna give up _now_? You gonna leave them again after what happened last time you up and _died_?"

Dean stood up, shaking his head in disgust, unable to listen to the things Bobby was saying to him. He exited the study, Sam hot on his heels. In the kitchen, Alex was standing by the window, biting her thumbnail and staring out of the glass panes vapidly. She glanced Dean's way, then turned to put her back to him more. Sam followed Dean closely, who went to the refrigerator, tried to open it, and then found Sam in front of him, shutting the refrigerator with the weight of his body. "Why wouldn't you tell me that about Dad?" Sam demanded. "I mean, _shit_, Dean! Don't you think I should have _known_?"

Dean just looked at Sam, unruffled. "It was none of your concern."

Sam grew angrier. "Like _hell _it wasn't!"

Dean was impatient and annoyed. "Listen, Dad got drunk sometimes, liked to smack me and Al around, whatever. It's in the past," he said pointedly, apparently wanting to leave it there. "You happy?" He asked churlishly, and pointed to the refrigerator, raised his eyebrows in a foul, frustrated expression. "I'm gonna get a beer, do you _mind_?"

"Yeah, that's_ exactly_ what you need," Sam said harshly, moving to further block the refrigerator. "How could you never tell me about this?"

"Cuz I wanted to keep you _safe_!" Dean exploded. "Cuz I wanted you to be able to look up to Dad how I wanted to be able to look up to him. He was… he was a lot of things, Dad. You didn't know who he really was, Sam."

"What, _abusive_?"

Dean looked sick, like he couldn't believe Sam would use that term, and he grew defensive. "Come on man, we weren't his punching bags, we were his _kids_." He stopped for a minute, seemed to realize he needed to make a concession. "He just… just sometimes lost his temper. I tried to always make sure if he needed someone to shove around, I was first in line. But sometimes… sometimes, I just couldn't be." He glanced Alex's way—she hadn't moved from the window. Dean's expression saddened, his voice grew quieter. "It was my job to protect you and Alex." He seemed to get really upset and looked away from Sam at that point. "That's always been my job." And the way he said it, the look on his face—it was clear that Dean felt like he'd utterly failed in every way.

He clenched his jaw, looked at the fridge, sad but trying to joke now, which was strange given the conversation. "Quit screwing around, Sam, lemme have a beer."

Sam just looked at his brother disapprovingly, troubled and sympathetic despite his anger. "Dean…"

Alex listened to the entire exchange without saying a thing, only feeling sicker and sicker. What had happened with Dean was bothering her, deeply. What he had done wasn't the absolute end of the world—yeah her back did hurt a little and there would probably be a bruise from where she'd hit up against the bookshelves, but she'd had bruises before and would get over the physical pain. But maybe not the emotional pain.

Maybe she shouldn't have shouted at him like she had or basically insinuated that he wasn't a man, but after all the crazy crap he'd said to her, did he really expect her not to get righteously pissed?

She thought of the absolute rage that had been on his face when he'd shoved her so hard with the intention of hurting her, and it broke her heart, because that was the_ exact _kind of thing Dean refused to let happen to her when she'd been younger. She didn't understand why he would do the very thing that had always made him sick in the past. The very thing he'd _protected_ her from all those years. For a second, she wondered if she deserved what Dean had done—she'd grown up to believe she was a screw up and a disgrace, even thought her brothers had always told her the opposite—her father's rough ways and absence and lack of involvement with her when he was around (unless it was an angry outburst, usually) had silently drilled into her brain, year after year, that she was nothing special and that she didn't deserve the kind of love she wanted.

Now, Dean had done the same thing to her that he'd _seen_ Dad to to her. Dean used to stand up to Dad for her and hold her tight after Dad would get drunk and belligerent. She felt her chest constrict painfully. _How the hell could you do that, Dean? _Him pushing her like that was all the convincing she needed that somehow, her oldest brother didn't love her anymore. That explained why he'd been able to leave so easily—he didn't care anymore. And that frigging _suicide letter_, talking about how much he loved her and was proud of her? Lies. Complete crap. If he really loved her or Sam, he wouldn't _leave_. He _wasn't _proud of her, that much was obvious from how much he hated her involvement with Cas. And she wanted to scream, because she shouldn't have to choose between Dean and Castiel, and she resented her brother so deeply for trying to make her do exactly that.

Whatever. Just, whatever. She couldn't afford to think about that or him right now. Honestly now that they had found him and brought him here, she wanted to just shut him away and not speak to him ever again. She decided to stop thinking about him completely, not to waste her time on the guy who was clearly far gone, past hope at this point.

Her thoughts turned to Cas, and quickly became wracked with worry. He'd just suddenly doubled over and groaned in a horrible sound of pain then disappeared. Where had he gone? What was wrong? Who or what had made him hurt like that? The sound he'd made had freaked her out more than anything had in awhile. Her mind spun with unanswered questions that Would he be back at all? Was it some sort of trap he'd been lured into? Heaven was after him, apparently—and the thought that maybe they had caught up to him, taken him away for good or something—she forced herself to breath in and out deeply, not get upset without good cause. She let out a heavy breath. She didn't used to care when he disappeared, and she couldn't remember what it felt like to not care. Every time he left, it got harder and harder. Because she never knew when he'd be back. And every time he _was_ there, she just wanted to cling onto him tighter. It scared her, honestly.

She thought back to last night, underneath the stars, how he'd looked at her and essentially implied that he _wanted_ her again. How he'd told her nothing had meant anything to him until her. How he'd said she was beautiful. She was still reeling from everything he'd told her. She didn't think she deserved everything he felt for her and said to her.

After Sam had come back, picked them up, they'd driven all night and Alex had spent the whole time wishing she'd been brave enough to just turn to Cas on that tailgate, tell him she wanted him, too. She imagined them together in the back of the truck, making each other feel alive, discovering each other again. The thought of being with him again like that was both exhilarating and terrifying—she could still barely believe that they had actually done what they had there in the Vatican just a couple days ago.

And to think, Dean was bent out of shape after just seeing them _kiss_. He'd probably fall over dead from a stroke if he knew what she and Cas had done against a bookshelf in the dead of night... she heard her oldest brother grumbling at Sam somewhere behind her and felt her stomach twist again unhappily.

There was an audible gust of wind in the study, and Bobby suddenly called out "hey, shake tail!"

Just a little bit behind her brothers, Alex hurried back into the study, pulse suddenly hammering wildly in anxious anticipation when she caught a flash of beige. Relieved wasn't a big enough word for when she saw that Castiel was back.

He was laying a dirty, unconscious person down onto the cot as Bobby wheeled himself around to get a better look. "Who is it?" he asked, looking at the siblings in confusion. Alex looked at Cas, both trying to see if he were all right, and wondering what explanation he would offer. He only looked at her breathlessly as he stood back, allowing Sam, Dean, and Bobby to crowd around the cot. Curiosity winning out, Alex craned her neck around Sam, trying to get a better view of the guy laying on the cot. The face and hair were caked in dark dirt, his clothes were filthy. He _did_ look sort of familiar. And then it hit her. _Wait, was that…?_

"That's our _brother_," Sam breathed, and Dean moved forward, checked the kid's pulse—muttered "alive," even as Bobby was looking at Sam like he was nuts.

"Wait a minute," Bobby said. "Your brother? _Adam_?"

"Cas, what the hell?" Dean demanded, and Alex, similarly caught off guard, asked "how?" Adam was _dead_. Or at least, he had been.

Castiel shook his head, set down two gleaming angel blades onto Bobby's desk. "Angels," he said simply. Everyone's eyes went to the blades. Had he just faced down _two angels_? His eyes glanced up into Alex's, and she felt like her stomach dropped out from underneath her when she realized he must have just _killed_ two angels. Even though he was obviously fine, she felt insanely worried and sick at the thought that he'd been in danger.

"Angels?" Sam repeated. "_Why_?"

Castiel seemed unsure and grim, shook his head just slightly. He didn't seem to like this newest development. "I know one thing for sure," he said, and strode over from the desk to where Adam laid. "We need to hide him _now_."

He put his hand over Adam's chest and light shone underneath his palm as he branded him with Enochian warding symbols—Adam's body convulsed and writhed underneath Cas's hand and Adam's eyes shot open, he gasped, floundering backwards, struggling to sit up, looking at them all without any trace recognition in his eyes, only panic and confusion.

"Where am I?" he demanded, and Sam went forward a little even as Cas fell back, his arm brushing against Alex's as he stood near her. They looked at each other briefly, each wondering what had happened in the absence of the other, concerned and not bothering to hide it.

"It's okay. Just relax, you're safe," Sam told Adam, who looked at him blankly.

"Who the hell are you?" the kid asked, rude and stirred up, probably a little freaked at what was happening.

Dean took the cue. "You're going to find this a little…" he changed his mind, "okay, a _lot _crazy, but we're actually your family," Dean said. "Your siblings."

"It's the truth," Sam said, trying to speak softly to calm the kid down. "John Winchester was our father, too. See, I'm Sam—"

"Yeah, and I'm sure that's Dean," Adam said, eyes flicking to Dean, then Alex, "and that must be Alex." How did he know who they were? The real Adam Milligan had died before meeting them at all. But his eyes flickered between the three of them and he said, "I know who you are."

Sam's uncertain frown deepened. "How?"

"They warned me about you," was Adam's reply.

"_Who _did?" Dean asked.

"The angels," Adam answered impatiently, and there was a shocked silence at the information. Adam didn't seem to care about their confusion, just looked at them demandingly. "Now where the hell is Zachariah?"

"What business do you have with Zachariah?" Cas asked suspiciously.

Adam looked up at him blankly. "And who the hell are you, huh?"

Cas narrowed his eyes. "Castiel." He paused heavily, seeming ashamed almost when he continued, his eyes flickering downward. "I'm... an angel of the Lord."

"Great, you can take me to them," Adam said, and made to stand up—but Cas put a hand on his shoulder, keeping the kid seated against his will.

"I'll do no such thing." Cas replied. "Zachariah—what would he want with you?"

Adam shoved Cas's hand away defiantly, appearing to realize he wasn't going to be able to just leave. "If you're not taking me," he said, "then it's none of your damn business."

"We just wanna help, kid," Bobby told him, and Adam finally looked at Bobby solidly, frowning and appearing to be less than impressed with him.

"And who are you, grandpa?"

"That's Bobby," Dean said. "And he ain't no grandpa. He's one of the best damn hunters out there."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever," Adam said, and looked down at himself and how dirty he was. "Can someone get me a towel or something?" he asked, then looked at Alex pointedly, who just stared right back, disliking his attitude.

"And you're looking at _me_ why?" she asked. Just because she was the only girl present, that didn't make her a housemaid. She looked him up and down and gave him one of her more unpleasant facial expressions, decided he was a jackass right then and there. "You don't need a towel, you need a hose down."

He stared back at her seeming to feel exactly the same about her as she did about him. Sam, ever the peacemaker, cleared his throat. "Yeah, good idea," he said, and motioned for Adam to get up. "Look, uh, you can probably fit Dean's size. I'll uh, show you where you can take a shower, get cleaned up."

Adam stood up. "I need to get to the angels," he insisted, but Dean clapped a hand onto his shoulders, squeezed tight.

"First things first," Dean said. "Get cleaned up. Then we talk."

Sullen, Adam looked at Dean a minute longer, then went with Sam. The sound of their footsteps going up the stairs thudded overhead and Dean turned, made a face like he wasn't sure what to think. "Well, _this _is an interesting plot twist," he commented, trying to be funny maybe, but Alex, who had put some distance between herself and him when Sam left, just looked at him untrustingly. His attempt at a smile faded away. "Look, Al—" he tried.

She shook her head and, as she exited the room, told him "I don't wanna talk to you right now."

Dean went to follow her, but Cas stood in his way, and his grim expression matched his tone. "You heard her, Dean."

There was a pause, and Dean didn't react like he normally would have. He didn't get angry or explode. He just looked defeated. Taking a couple steps backwards and visibly fighting great amounts of sorrow and frustration and loathing, Dean nodded, looking down at the ground. "Yeah. All right. I see how it is." He turned away, made a_ get lost _motion with his hand, as if he didn't care. He muttered something ugly under his breath that sounded like "screw you very much." But Cas didn't seem to care. He left Bobby and Dean to themselves, and followed Alex, who had gone out onto the front porch.

She had paced down the porch halfway, and she seemed to be waiting for him, holding herself anxiously, drumming her fingers against her arm absently. When she saw him walk through the screen door, her arms dropped to her sides, she came to him quickly, grabbed him by both arms. "Are you okay?" she asked intensely, stunning him with how worried she seemed. "I saw the angel blades—they tried to kill you, didn't they?"

"Yes, but—" he started.

"_God_, Cas." She put a hand to her face, fingertips on her forehead, highly distressed, at a level that left Cas almost speechless. She seemed to be having a difficult time figuring out how to word herself. "I just… you can't die, okay?" she asked. "Not _again_."

He looked at her hesitatingly, knowing he couldn't promise that he would never die, especially not now that he was essentially a fugitive of Heaven. He'd come close to death just a few minutes ago, when two of his angel brothers had attempted to blindside him before he could rescue Adam. He'd fought them off, even as in the back of his mind he'd panicked, wondering what would happen to Alex if he died, disappeared from her life without a word or an explanation. "I'll try not to," he told her, an honest statement—when he said that, it brought a surprised, half-smile half confused expression to her face, as if he'd said something funny and she was trying to figure out if it were okay to be amused or not.

Cas stepped closer to her, searching her face carefully, touching one of her arms gingerly, not caring about discussing his wellbeing any further, because that wasn't what was most important to him. "Are _you_ all right?" he asked, thinking of how horrible it was to see Dean shove her like he had, how slow Castiel felt he reacted, how horrified he still was that Dean could even _think_ of doing that to his sister. How he'd been almost unable to leave her side at all when he'd heard the angels voices clamoring in his head.

Her face was still now, unreadable almost. "I'm not hurt," Alex answered.

Castiel recognized that she didn't give him a clear-cut answer. He studied her carefully. It was strange how his concern and care physically riled him, made him feel anxious both in mind and body. "Alex—has Dean ever done something like that to you before?"

She shook her head, looking down and to the right. "No, never." She smiled then, but it was pretend. She acted light, but it wasn't real. "Still. What a dick, right?" she said it in a joking, carefree way. Cas felt his head tilting to the side in puzzlement.

Cas didn't understand why she would be false with him, unless she maybe didn't want him to worry. He looked at her steadily, studiously. "Don't pretend you're not upset," he told her gentle. He knew she _was_ upset. Her eyes snapped up to his in surprise. Her state of upset was in the details—he recognized the signs well now: the tense way her features would sit on her face, the slight movement in her cheek when she bit and chewed on the inside of her mouth. The way she squeezed her hands tightly into little balls, the way she blinked more than usual.

She seemed startled at what he'd said. Startled, and unable to deny that he was right. "I_ am_ upset," she conceded quietly. "It's not that it like hurt a lot or something, it's… he was never supposed to _do_ something like that to me."

It was as though her words were what he felt: Dean _was_ never supposed to do something like that to her. It was a heavy, sad reality. Castiel wasn't sure if he could allow himself to let her stay with Dean after this. She was looking at him from under her lashes, seeming hesitant now. "Cas, honestly, you… kinda scared me in there," she said, swallowed and looked at him nervously. "What were you going to do to him?"

Castiel met her gaze slowly. "Hurt him very badly." He realized that perhaps again, he had gone too far. He felt frustrated, unable to put himself into words. "I only want to protect you."

She looked at him fully and she seemed open to him right then, not hiding anything. "I know," she said softly, and then touched his hand that hung at his side. Grasped it gently. Her thumb slid up underneath the cuff of his shirt, brushing the bare skin of his wrist bone. And the simple touch felt electric to Castiel. Her eyes met his and it felt to him as though she were calling to him, beckoning him. He could find no words to say—they all seemed to disappear, float out of his mind. It was a spell she had over him, a trance she put him in, and he felt like he had last night, when he'd asked her if it were wrong to desire her the way he did, when he'd touched the soft curving angle of her hip bone through her clothes. He was once again consumed with what he felt for her. His eyes bored into hers, and her lips parted softly as she stared back. He wondered why he suddenly felt so frustrated by how far apart he felt from her, how wide the distance seemed, how much he _wanted_...

The screen door squeaked noisily, and Sam poked his head out of the door. "Hey, you guys wanna come in? Adam's done."

The moment seemed to be broken to pieces, and Alex looked at her twin in veiled irritation. "_Already_?" she asked.

Sam shrugged. "Took the fastest shower in the history of the world. Seems pretty eager to get going."

With a brief, reluctant, glance at each other, the youngest Winchester and the angel went back inside, finding a restless Adam in the study. He looked different—his hair had been wet and obviously hurriedly scrubbed with a towel. His face was clean now and he wore some of Dean's old clothes that had been stashed at Bobby's. He was pacing like a caged animal.

"Sit down, would you? You're making me nervous," Dean grumbled. He sat backwards in the chair Sam had claimed earlier.

Adam did so grudgingly, and his fingers tapped nervously on his knee as Bobby poured a glass of whiskey and handed it over silently. Adam didn't look thrilled, but sampled it, looking at Cas and Alex as they came in. Alex stood in front of the desk at the far wall, opposite of Adam, and Cas stood beside her. Sam sat on Bobby's desk, folding his arms and looking at Adam.

"So why don't you just tell us everything?" Dean prompted. "Start from the beginning."

Adam looked like he'd rather eat moldy cheese, but he looked around the room and seemed to mentally note that he was outnumbered. Unhappy about it, he started, seeming to be bored as hell from the way he spoke. "Well, I was dead and in Heaven." He paused, and he almost smiled. "'Cept it—it uh, kinda looked like my prom and I was making out with this girl, her name was Kristin McGee—" he had a little bit of a smile on his face now, and Dean, ever the classy one, was nodding.

"Yeah, that sounds like Heaven. Did you get to third base?"

Sam cleared his throat noisily, "Shut up, Dean," he said. "Just uh, just keep going, Adam."

Moody, Dean rolled his eyes. Sam pointedly didn't look at him. Adam didn't miss the fact that the brothers were at odds, he looked between them suspiciously for a second, then continued. "Well, these… these angels, they popped out of nowhere, and they tell me that I'm chosen."

"For?" Alex asked, when he said nothing else.

He looked at her, his eyes dull and aloft, superior. "To save the world."

"How you gonna do that?" Dean asked.

"Oh, me and some archangel are going to kill the devil," Adam said, growing smug now.

"What archangel?" Dean asked, sounding more and more confused.

"Michael," Adam said, shocking his listeners. "I'm his uh, sword or vessel or something, I don't know." Adam sounded bored again, even though everyone else in the room had gone still.

"Well, that's insane," Dean said, scoffing.

Beside Alex, Cas was in deep thought. "Not necessarily," he said, drawing everyone's surprised stares.

Dean turned around in his chair, looked at Cas carefully. "How do you mean?"

"Maybe they're moving on from you, Dean," Cas said, which struck Alex as extremely odd—they could _do_ that? Why hadn't they known that before?

Dean appeared to be having trouble with the idea, too. "Well that doesn't make sense," he said neutrally.

"He _is _John Winchester's bloodline, Sam's brother," Cas said. "It's not perfect, but it's possible."

"Well you gotta be kidding me," Dean muttered, then was struck by an epiphany. "Wait, hold on. If it's bloodline…" he stared at Cas accusingly, looked at Alex for the first time since she'd re-entered the room and swept a hand toward her. "Could _she_ be a vessel?" He sounded genuinely concerned, and his question sent a ripple of shock through Alex.

She looked at Cas, who was looking down, frowning deeply. "I... don't think so."

"Well find out!" Dean thundered.

Castiel's arms, which had been folded, fell to his sides, his gaze darkened, his tone became almost brazen. "If your sister were a vessel, don't you think we would _know_ that by now?"

"Hell if I know, Cas," Dean retorted, looking at the angel as if he were a moron.

Cas's jaw squared. "Michael seeks a _male_ vessel," Cas told him. "Alex is a female."

"Oh,_ really_. I hadn't noticed," Dean snarked, then turned back around, rolling his eyes.

Cas tried one more time. "I doubt Michael would be after Adam if Alex were a vessel."

Dean ignored Castiel.

"Why would the angels decide to do this?" Sam asked, upset by and stuck on the fact that Dean was being passed over in favor of Adam, how little sense it made.

"Maybe they're desperate," Cas answered, then stared at the back of Dean's head, his arms folding again. "Maybe they _wrongly_ assumed Dean would be brave enough to withstand them." Was that superiority in Cas's voice? Alex looked at him sidelong, feeling sort of proud of him for speaking up and giving Dean some attitude right back.

Dean turned around again, gave the angel a death glare. "Alright, you know what? Blow me, Cas."

Castiel frowned, looked uncertain as to Dean's meaning. Alex just looked at Dean cooly, saw how Cas's comment really had gotten to him.

Adam looked at the occupants of the room with a seriously doubtful expression on his face, picking up on the tension and discord. "Look, no way," Sam was saying. "After everything that's happened? All that crap about destiny?" He sounded intense and heated. "Suddenly the angels have a plan B? Does that smell right to _anybody_?" He looked around for someone, anyone, to back him up, and Adam seemed to lose patience.

"You know this has been a _really_ moving family reunion, but uh, I got a thing, so—" he stood up, and when he did, so did Sam.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," he Sam said quickly, physically blocking Adam's way. "Sit down. Just listen, okay? Please."

Adam looked at Dean, who'd sat back in the chair, tensed and ready to stand up and stop him—at Cas, who had come forward a couple steps, ready to stop him—at Alex, who'd unfolded her arms and stopped leaning against the desk, ready to stop him.

Shaking his head and giving up on the idea of leaving, Adam backed down. "This is unbelievable," he muttered, sitting back down sullenly.

Sam settled back down onto the desk, but he wasn't as relaxed as before. "Now, Adam… the angels are _lying_ to you," he said emphatically, his words salted with bitter first-hand knowledge. He'd apparently given up on the gentle approach, and was using a sharp tone of voice now. "They're full of _crap_."

Adam smirked and looked down. "Yeah, I don't think so."

"Really. Why not?" Sam said.

"Um, 'cause they're _angels_," Adam retorted.

"And did they tell you that half the planet is gonna get fried in the process?" Alex cut in and asked him. He looked at her without any trace of emotion. "Did they tell you they're at _civil war _up there? Buddy, you have no clue what you're in to right now."

"Okay, first of all? I ain't your buddy," Adam said brusquely. "Second, I don't need to know all that stuff, not my area. It's the devil, right? It's gonna get bad. They said the fight might get a little into the moral gray area. But you know, as long as I'm putting Satan in cement shoes?" He shrugged carelessly, gave a little cold smile, looked_ just _like Dean for a second. "I'm okay with a little collateral."

_Wow. What a hero._ Alex stared him down balefully. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, and you do, princess?" he asked, baiting her, the corner of his mouth lifting up further into an insulting little smirk.

Alex smiled right back at him, a single, challenging eyebrow arcing up for the space of a second. "Hey, I'm not the one who was dead in the ground half an hour ago, champ," she said. His smile fell.

"_Guys_." Sam looked at Alex angrily. "Stop." He looked back at their half-brother, increasingly frustrated. "Listen, Adam, there's another way here for us to kill the devil, okay?" At that, Dean looked at Sam contentiously, clearly done with his brother's attempts.

"Great," Adam said, obviously not caring in the least, sounding more and more peevish. "What is it?"

"We're working on 'the power of love,'" Dean cut in, drawing a scowl from Sam.

"How's_ that _going?" Adam asked cynically.

"Mmm," Dean smiled facetiously. "Not good." At this point, he was acting almost _entertained_ by Sam's attempts to convince Adam.

Sam didn't let Dean's shitty attitude or goading little smirks and overly expectant expressions affect him. He focused on Adam, tried the heartfelt gentle approach again. "Look, Adam… you don't know me from a hole in the wall, I know. But I'm begging you. Please, just trust me." He paused, desperate. "Give me some time."

Adam looked at him grudgingly. "Give me one good reason."

Sam took a couple seconds, seeming to grasp at straws in his mind. "Because we're blood."

Dean seemed to think that was funny, looked down at his lap, smiling bitterly. Adam seemed to be insulted. "You've got no right to say that to me," he said softly, dangerously.

"You're still John's boy," Bobby pointed out, and Adam looked at him sharply.

"No, John Winchester was some guy who took me to a baseball game once a year. I don't have a dad." He looked at each Winchester in turn now, angrily. "So we may be blood, but we are not_ family_. My _mom_ is my family. And if I do my job, I get to see her again. So no offense, but she's the one I give a rat's ass about, not any of you."

"Fair enough," Sam said quietly. "But if you have one good memory of Dad, just one, then you'll give us a little more time. Please."

Adam looked around the room again, at how outnumbered he was. "Yeah, fine," Adam said, looking at Sam sullenly. "Not like I have a choice."

"He took you to baseball games, huh?" Dean asked, and Adam looked at him fleetingly.

"Yeah." He frowned at Dean, giving him a weird look. "What? Why are you all looking at me like that?"

Dean made a face, shrugged casually. "The old man never really did that kind of stuff for us," Dean said, as if it weren't a big deal, but Adam's eyebrows raised.

"So what, you're _jealous_ of me?" Adam laughed scornfully. "Wow, that's rich. Yeah you had it real bad seeing him all year long, didn't you? How sad for you."

Alex almost laughed at this point, at how obvious it was that Adam was a Winchester from his foul attitude and smart mouth. "This guy is an asshole, he fits right in," she muttered to no one in particular, but with a pointed look at Dean.

Adam looked at her spitefully. "Said the ugliest Winchester in the room," he retorted.

Sam stood up, pointed a finger each in turn at Adam and Alex."Hey, there's no need for that," he said firmly.

"She started it," Adam muttered, and Alex just crossed her arms again, looked away, not regretting what she'd said. Cas looked displeased overall, glaring at Adam openly.

"What's your problem, Columbo?" Adam sneered. Cas frowned, clearly not getting the reference.

"Well isn't this just the best family reunion you ever been to," Bobby commented sarcastically.

Dean stood up. "I really need a beer," he said, sounding sullen, but then Sam grasped him by the arm, gently.

Dean looked at Sam's hand, then Sam, frowning. "Yeah, I uh… I'm gonna have to ask you to come downstairs with me." Sam looked at Dean meaningfully.

"Come again?" Dean asked, then wet his lips, preparing a grand speech and pulling himself backwards out of Sam's grip, taking with one of his hands, the bad attitude levels hitting an all-time high. "If you think I'm gonna just go down there and sit on my ass and let this stupid kid over here do my job for me, you—" he fell forward, unconscious mid-sentence thanks to Cas, who stood behind him.

Sam caught him easily, and looked at Cas with a thin attempt at a smile. "Thanks, Cas."

Adam's mouth was open and he appeared to be a little disconcerted by what had just happened. Sam hefted Dean up into his arms, then nodded in Adam's direction. "Can you uh, stay with him until I get back?" he asked Castiel, whose reply was "of course."

"Need help?" Alex asked her twin, but Sam shook his head, already halfway out of the room.

"Nah, I got him."

Adam looked at Cas appraisingly as the sound of Sam's footsteps faded away. "What, you think I'm gonna run?" he asked irritably.

"If you're anything like your brother Dean, yes," Cas said factually, to which Adam's expression darkened.

"That guy isn't my brother. I don't know him. I don't _wanna_ know him." Adam's jaw tightened, he looked around cagily. "This is bullshit."

Alex rolled her eyes, because if there was one more thing she needed in her life right now, it was Adam, who might as well be Dean Junior. "I gotta get some stuff outta the car," she said, pausing at the doorframe on her way out, a hand on it as she looked back at Cas, who nodded. Their eyes lingered on the others. Adam's face wrinkled in confusion, catching the long, meaningful way they looked at each other.

* * *

Alex had good intentions of getting all of their bags, doing some laundry, straightening up the trunk of the Impala, which was a mess... but when she'd seen the keys on the front seat where she'd tossed them earlier, she stopped, forgetting her plans. She reached in through the car's open window and picked them up, looking at her old silver whistle hanging alongside Dean's keys. She'd been about to toss it awhile ago when cleaning out her things before Dean died. He'd told her she was nuts, that she should keep it, that she might want it someday. She thought he was being stupid and sentimental, but knowing he wasn't long for the world, she'd said okay, had given it to him to keep until she wanted it back. At the time, she thought she wouldn't want it again.

She unhooked it from the keychain and left the keys sitting on the seat. She leaned back against the Impala and looked at the whistle for a long moment. In the mid-morning sun, it gleamed brightly up at her from the palm of her hand. It reminded her of what Castiel had done for her. _Would _do for her. She wasn't sure if anyone else had ever loved her so fiercely and protectively. She thought of how even though she hated what Dean had done—running away, hurting her—it had shown her twice over how Cas really meant what he said about wanting to stay with her and protect her.

She thought about the girl who'd worn this whistle for all those years—sad, lonely, frustrated at how she could never say what was on her mind at the right time, left out of everything... she wasn't that girl anymore. Because of him.

She heard footsteps crunching against the gravel toward her, and she looked up, already knowing who it was. Still, looking up and seeing him there in the flesh set her stomach fluttering all over again. The mere sight of him was growing increasingly staggering to her. She thought, faintly, shouldn't he seem more and more commonplace to her, the more that she saw him? Instead, every new time her eyes beheld him, she was struck by even deeper feelings and emotions.

Cas stood a few paces away, silently looked at what she held in her hand, then up at her. He knew what it was, and she knew that. Her mouth curved into a soft smile, she looked down at her hand, closed her fingers around the whistle, looked back at Cas. She wished he would come closer, and as if he could read her thoughts, he did. He cupped her closed fist in his hand and she opened her hand back up, watching him as he studied the small silver object.

His eyes met hers silently, and she held the whistle, turned her hand down over his, setting the whistle into his palm, closing his fingers over it gently with her other hand. He looked down at his closed fist, then at her, distantly puzzled. She shrugged her shoulders up a bare fraction of an inch, her face soft. His eyes flickered from hers down to her lips, back again a couple of times, then stayed on her lips as he leaned down. She tilted her head up to meet his lips with hers in a soft, sweet kiss that lingered. When they came apart, it wasn't far, and they didn't stay apart long. She kissed him again, a little less gently, a little less slowly.

He pocketed the whistle even as she took his lapels in her hands and pulled him deeper into the embrace. Readily, almost anxiously, Castiel circled his arms around her, wrapping her up gently but tightly, enveloping her, a hand tangling in her hair, and the way he touched her like that made her more anxious—and she pulled harder on his lapels, growing breathless, and their mouths came apart again, their foreheads touching as they breathed raggedly, his hand moved from her hair to her face, his eyes half closed as he took it in and _felt_ her skin under his hand, her quick little breaths hitting against his lips.

Cas appeared to be troubled and anxious about something, and Alex gazed at him in sudden rising concern. "What is it?" she asked quietly, her hands sliding up to his shoulders, her gaze flickering over his face. He didn't look up at her yet, was frowning in thought, struggling with how to phrase it. "I feel… that no matter how close we are…" his eyes flickered up to hers, dark and full of anxious earnestness, "we're still not close enough." She knew what he meant.

Unable to stop herself and not wanting to, either, she kissed him again, softly, reveling in how it felt, the soft pressure of his two lips pressing against hers, moving slowly and tenderly. In growing anxiety and desire, she pressed into him full force and kissed him more deeply, coming to life in his arms, swept away at the ardent way his mouth moved with hers. It was like a language only the two of them spoke, when their lips and mouths came together in this way. And when he spoke to her in this way, she felt alive. He broke the kiss but barely withdrew at all, and when he spoke, she felt his mouth moving to form the words he said next, words that caught her off guard completely.

"_Alex_, let me have you again," he begged her softly, and she could have died from the sudden onset of surprise and desire—his pleading words were like a lightning bolt straight down her center, and she felt floored. "N-now?" she asked breathily, barely believing him, choking on her question almost, wondering if he was going to just push her up against the Impala and take her right in the middle of the salvage yard. He seemed to be despairing, his breathing quickening markedly. "Yes, _now_," he said, and he sounded like if she said no, he would die—but of _course_ she wouldn't say no—she didn't even care what he did to her or where, she just nodded frantically because she would die, too, if she couldn't have him again, and his lips were on hers again, sending currents of warmth racing through her.

She was vaguely startled when a deep groan sounded from the bottom of Castiel's throat and he suddenly lifted her up into his arms, setting her around his waist, and then she was further caught off guard when there was a sudden pull in the vicinity of her stomach, a feeling of wind rushing past her, and she suddenly felt herself falling backwards, then hitting something soft and flat. Her eyes had flown open in surprise and confusion to look at Cas, who was suddenly_ above_ her—and above him were exposed wood beams of a roof. They were no longer in the salvage yard at all—she realized he'd taken them into Bobby's attic, onto the spare bed that was kept up there.

Alex stared at him motionlessly, shocked and spurred on at the same time by how bold of a move that was on Castiel's part, at how he was being so assertive and clear about what he wanted. His coat was pooled around them, he had his palms pressed down on either side of her, he looked down at her with an uncertain expression, gauging her stunned reaction to what he'd done, maybe wondering if he'd been too forward or too quick—but Alex had recovered from the initial shock, and reached up, pulled him down to her by the tie, arching herself up to meet his lips with hers.

His hands slid around her back now, encircling her again, holding her close to him as their mouths moved together in a deep, searching kiss. Fumblingly, Alex reached up with both hands into the tight space between their bodies, loosening his tie and pulling it up and over his head, breaking the kiss as she did, and he looked down at her breathlessly. She tossed his tie aside without looking to see where it went, wondered if Cas were nervous, too, because she almost thought he was, from the look on his face. She brushed her fingers against the side of his face affectionately, overcome by how this moment was real, that he was real. That the way they felt about each other was undeniably _real_. That he wanted her in the same way that she wanted him. She looked into those eyes, brilliant blue and patterned in little zinging lightning bolts throughout, and she held his face in both hands now, brushing her thumbs back over his stubble. His face came down toward hers, nose brushing against the side of hers as he kissed her softly, tenderly now. As if she were the most precious and breakable thing to him. With the backs of her legs, she pulled his torso closer to hers, so that there was no space between them. She whimpered against his mouth when she felt him pressing up against her, between her legs. He breathed out shudderingly at the sound she made and the sudden increase in the pressure.

She shoved at his jacket and coat awkwardly as they struggled to kiss even while shedding the trench coat and suit jacket. Somehow, they managed, Cas holding an arm out while she yanked roughly on one sleeve until his arm was free, and then the same with the other, and carelessly, the coat and jacket were tossed aside. The second he was out of his outer layers, his arms hugged around her with renewed vigor, as if he couldn't stand to be any further away from her, his mouth surged down onto hers passionately, and one of his hands swept to her lower back, pressed flat-palmed into the contours of her spine and pulled her against him until they both gave a surprised, strangled gasp.

Alex was unbuttoning his shirt with stumbling, frantic fingers, desperate to feel the warmth of his skin, desperate for _more_ of him. She simultaneously dragged the heels of her shoes across the bed, kicking her shoes off haphazardly. She felt Cas pushing himself up onto his elbows, felt him begin to unbutton her outer shirt as their mouths refused to part—her heart jumped into her throat as she felt the whisper-soft movements and inexperienced pulling of his fingers against her shirt as he undid the buttons in a way that was clumsy, endearing, and completely arousing to her. She felt choked, her body literally couldn't handle the sheer weight of _how much_ she wanted him. His shirt was finally unbuttoned and she pulled back, looked at his toned chest and smooth skin that she could see in the gap of the open shirt. She suddenly felt intimidated by the sight of him, and the way he was _looking _at her.

Beneath him, her dark hair fanning out across the faded bedspread, Alex was breathing heavily, looking up at Castiel with dark, unguarded eyes. Her mouth was open, her chest heaved up and down. Her shirt was unbuttoned and had fallen open, there was a thin gray tank top underneath, and Cas looked at the smooth fair skin stretching over her collarbone—and he felt the need to touch it, test the feeling beneath his hand, trace the shape of what laid beneath her skin. He did, he touched her there, fingertips light on the end of her collarbone near her shoulder. She watched him like he was the most entrancing thing she'd ever seen, and he could feel how she breathed, how her pulse fluttered underneath his fingertips. Her skin against his skin was like he imagined a drug must be. He couldn't stop, he didn't want to, ever. He just wanted to keep feeling her, all of the dips and hollows and textures and shapes that were hers. He wanted to know every part of her, see everything. He wanted to know what she loved, what she wanted, what she felt.

Alex froze when she felt Castiel's hand sweep across the bare skin below her collarbone, his fingers leaving a trail of electricity across her upper chest as they traced downward hesitatingly. His palm brushed over the curve of her breast and she literally shuddered at the feeling of being touched there. Helplessly, she looked up at him, overwhelmed. In the Vatican it had been dark and sudden and unintentional and a little drunken but this was different, this was so much more intimate and frightening somehow, and even though they had already been together, Alex was suddenly aware of how she still felt completely virginal and shy, unsure of herself.

His fingers rested on the skin above where her tank top began, just over where her heart thumped fast and hard. He looked at her like he was amazed all over again, then down at his hand, fascinated and adoring. "I can feel your heart beating," he said softly, looked back up at her. She thought maybe it skipped a beat then, she forgot her nerves temporarily. She touched the left side of his chest, slid her hand over to where she felt the strong, rhythmical pounding against the palm of her hand. His skin was warm and firm, the bottoms of her fingers just grazed a hard, smooth knot—the place where he'd taken a bullet for her. There was a lump of emotion in her throat. "I can feel yours, too," she said quietly, and their gaze remained locked until he bent his head down, stilling her with brief kiss that lingered, that he hesitated to pull back from.

His hand slid away from her chest, moved around to brace against her back—and he sat up, lifting her with him, sitting back onto his heels. And with his free hand, he touched the curving space where her neck and shoulder met… and slowly he took hold of the collar of her flannel shirt and began to pull it down and off. She let him, shifting and moving each arm in turn, her pulse pounding a million miles an hour, her nerves going crazy every time that the edge of his hand or fingers grazed over her bare skin, her eyes falteringly trying to stay on his but nervously falling away again and again. He was _undressing_ her, and she was letting him, and she could barely think straight. When her shirt was off, leaving her in the gray tank top. Alex looked into his eyes fleetingly, swallowing, nervous. She had her legs wrapped around his middle still, he was only holding her there with one arm, but she knew that he was strong enough that even if she had let go of him completely, he'd still be able to hold her there. He was so powerful, he was so capable, she realized, feeling his strong hand against her back. And yet so achingly gentle with her. It made her love him more, made her want him more.

She pushed his shirt down slowly off of his shoulders, looked at the spot there where the bullet wound was. It looked like old scar tissue, even though it was only from a day ago._ A thousand bullets_. He didn't wait for her to pull the shirt off completely, he reached behind himself to each opposite arm and pulled it off himself, allowing her arms, which had locked around his neck, to keep her there securely against him. His arms were strong and defined, his shoulders broader than she remembered. He wrapped those arms around her again and gently lowered her back down to the bed, and once again the heft of his arousal pressed up against her, causing her to gasp, overwhelmed that she could inspire that, cause that to happen to him.

He heard her gasp softly, a sound that made blood flush his body with further degrees of pleasure and desire, and he didn't understand how he could feel _more_ of those things—every time that he thought he'd felt all he could, there was more with her. Cas marveled at the way Alex responded to whatever he did, and how in turn, whatever she did caused him to want more, always more. She was underneath him and he very much wanted to crush her underneath himself and make her his all over again, two things that distantly, he felt he shouldn't understand or desire. And yet still he did desire them. Restraining himself, he bent over her gently, his mouth meeting hers over and over again in sweet, fleeting, exploratory kisses. The rush of sensations she bestowed on him was so vast and yet not enough at all.

His hand went to one of his favorite places, the artful curve of her hip bone, and he felt the shape of it through the tank top—he moved his hand down, slid it up inside the shirt, her warm skin soft underneath his fingers—and hesitating, he began to push her shirt up further, knowing that in traditional human sexual encounters, the clothes all came off—and that's when he felt her go tense. She stopped short, pulled back from him as her breathing hitched. Her hand had shot out to cover his, stopping him frantically. "I... I have scars," she said, and there was quiet fear in her voice.

He'd stopped the second he felt her go tense, and he looked at her, not understanding, suddenly worried he'd done something wrong, something that she didn't want. "I know," he told her. "I've felt them."

She looked ashamed almost. "But you haven't seen them. They're… really horrible."

His face scrunched in a wounded expression as he understood that she was embarrassed of herself. "Nothing about you is horrible," he told her, and she looked at him a minute longer, and Cas made to move his hand away. "We don't have to," he told her earnestly, not wanting to do anything if she wasn't willing—but her hand gripped tighter, kept his hand exactly where it was.

She was quiet for a minute. "No," she finally whispered. "It's okay." She took a second, looked deeply into his eyes, and decisively she guided his hand up a little bit, which shifted her tank top up, revealed a small strip of skin above the waistband of her jeans. "I want to," she told him, and he could hear that she did, but also that she was nervous about it. He hesitated, trying to decide if he should keep going. She pulled on his hand again, and he looked at her carefully, making sure, then he pushed the soft gray material up slowly, up to the top of her rib cage, and he looked down at her torso, saw the scars he'd glancingly felt in the Vatican. They were large and jagged claw marks, four of them slashing downward from the top of her rib cage on the right, across her stomach at an angle. The skin of the scars was discolored and raised in an uneven pattern, standing out strongly, a strange blotchy pink against the rest of her fair olive skin. He traced his fingers down, matching up his fingers to the lines of each of the arcing scars.

"Werewolf," she explained in a single, soft word as she looked at him and pushed herself up slightly onto her elbows, her eyes dark and wide with nervous fear and shame that he didn't want her to feel. He knew that when he kissed her mouth, it made her feel good, maybe even beautiful. And he wondered if he kissed her there, where she felt ugly, if the same would apply. Wordlessly, he shifted himself downward, moving his face closer to her stomach, and he felt her tense again, and he glanced up at her—she was looking down at him uncertainly, holding herself rigidly, not seeming to breathe at all. His eyes lowered to the ragged line that had been carved into her skin what must have been years ago, and experimentally, slowly, he pressed a slow, steady kiss to the end of the scar. He could feel Alex trembling underneath his lips, saw, out of the corner of his eye, her hand clutching into the bedspread hard as she made a little surprised sound. Again he glanced up at her, uncertain about what he was doing—he saw that her eyes were closed, her face was screwed up into an expression like severe concentration and expectancy.

He continued, his lips unintentionally grazing across her skin as he moved up a little further, kissing another claw mark gently, falteringly. He felt little permanent ridges in the scar tissue there against his lips, where thread had been stitched unevenly. He thought of her being hurt and in pain, he thought of what these scars meant, and it only made him want to protect her more, keep her from ever being in danger ever again. And he pressed kisses more fervently, with burning slowness, his thoughts and love somehow bleeding out into the way in which he touched her.

She kept her eyes closed, tried to not squirm and moan and pant like she actually wanted to—she never knew the skin of her stomach and side was so sensitive. She could feel every press of his lips, each one was like a spark singeing her skin in the most achingly beautiful way. She felt some of his hair brushing against her each time he bowed his head over her, she felt the tip of his nose pressing into her skin and she opened her eyes, watched his dark head of hair bending over her slowly, repeatedly, saw the expression on his face—he seemed reverent of her almost, and it was so intense she almost couldn't watch, couldn't handle seeing him doing that to her.

He'd reached the top of her rip cage, startlingly close to her bust line, and he glanced up at her, and if it hadn't been intense before, it certainly was now, startlingly so. His eyes were filled with so much intention and there was a raw nature she wasn't used to seeing there. He came back to her, kissing her again, but this time she felt overpowered by him, how much he obviously wanted her—the kiss became deep and fire-filled, stoking heat between them, and the feeling was like nothing else for Alex, who suddenly felt empowered and daring. She locked her arms around his neck, rolled him over—well, he let her—and she was on top of him now, drawing back from him just a little, their stomachs still touching as she looking down at him. He was gazing up at her like she was some kind of goddess.

The ends of her hair trailed across his shoulders and upper chest, she looked from his eyes to his jawline, his neck, and she was so overcome by the desire to lean in and kiss him there. So she did, leaned down the small space and planted a gentle, hesitant kiss just below his jawline, her hands spread out on his shoulders, gripping gently. She felt his breathing catch, and growing bolder, encouraged by the way he responded to her, she let her lips leave a wet grazing trail to the spot below his ear, feeling the shudder his body gave as she did. Her hands moved down, gripping his strong upper arms as she kissed him again below his ear, and then a little lower on his neck, but this time not with closed lips—with soft, open lips, and he made a higher pitched sound of surprise, she heard him breathing heavily into her ear, felt one of his hands on her head, gripping solidly and he made a low growl of frustration when she bit down gently, nipping at the curve of his neck.

With surprising force and speed, he flipped her over, putting himself on top of her once again, kissing her almost frantically, pulling at her tank top, breaking the kiss long enough to pull it up and over her head as she maneuvered her arms clumsily through the arm holes. She felt him reaching back around her with both hands, grabbing at the clasp of her bra roughly, and then there was a loud ripping sound and he abruptly pulled back, looked at Alex with a strange expression. "I think... uh, I broke it," he said, pulling a hand out, looking at the ripped patch of white fabric that he held—one end had mangled metal clasps, the other end was torn jaggedly—and Alex found herself suddenly giggling because only Cas would do that—tear her bra in half in his haste—that, and he looked so _worried_.

"It's not the only one I have," she said, still grinning up at him and then wondering if you were supposed to laugh during sex, or foreplay, or… whatever this was. His expression softened, he smiled ever so softly at her, bent to kiss her again, and she could feel the way his lips were upturned against hers.

She felt his fingers slide up her shoulders, underneath the straps of her bra, and he pulled back. His eyes flickered up to hers, and she realized he was about to take it off, leave her naked from the waist up. Her amusement from a minute ago was gone.

She swallowed deeply, watching him as he pulled the bra down and away from her slowly. No one else had ever seen her like this, and she was breathless, nervous, flushed, shy. He seemed overcome at the sight of her, speechless, and then he stretched himself over her, kissing her lingeringly, moaning softly when his chest pressed up against hers. His eyebrows moved together deeply, his hand ghosted up her side, thumb brushing against the curve of her breast, a touch that made her whimper helplessly. She hung onto him tighter, overwrought with emotions and sensations, despairing for more of him, all of him.

She moved her hands down between them boldly, drawing a soft sound from him as she fumbled with his belt buckle, the button on his slacks, the zipper, he followed suit, mirroring her, pulling urgently at her jeans. Even the realization of what he was doing made her feel like she could faint, and when he began to pull at one of the legs, she wriggled a little, trying to get out of the jeans—he practically ripped them off her and flung them away, looked back at her, and that's when he glimpsed her demon ward tattoo. It was inked into the skin at the side of her left rib cage, and he touched it with two fingers softly, looked at her in the eyes. Underneath him, she was unguarded and waiting for him anxiously—and he realized he was still wearing too many clothes, looked down at himself—shoved the waistband of the black pants down halfway to his knees, realized he was still wearing shoes, too—grew frustrated at all the things that were on him and proving difficult to remove.

He used the toe of one shoe to push against the heel of the other, shoving it off, then kicked the other one off in similar fashion. Even as the shoes hit the floor with two loud clunks, he was wriggling out of the confines of his pants, returning to Alex, who stared at him wide-eyed, and he was slowed by intense realization of what they were about to do. He'd spent so much time thinking about what it would be like to be with her again, and yet here, on the cusp of the moment, he felt afraid that he might hurt her again—and still at the same time, he couldn't bear it, _had_ to be close to her, despaired to give himself to her.

Still, he looked down at her and saw that she looked afraid, too—and it made his chest clench in pain, in worry. "Why do you look afraid?" he asked her, putting a hand against her face and holding it there. The touch of his hand seemed to drive some fear out.

"I'm-I'm not," she said, and she put her hand over his, her fingertips moving gently against his, sort of stroking his fingers. "I'm ready," she whispered, and he saw how she breathed faster when she said that. And hearing her say that made him breathe faster, too.

Alex watched Cas as he looked down, and she followed his gaze—he still wore the navy blue boxer-briefs, she still wore her white cotton underwear. And then his fingers curled around the waistband of her underwear, her breath caught in her throat—she felt so exposed and small, totally at his mercy—and she _was _afraid, a little bit, unsure of herself, thinking back to the Vatican and wondering how that brazen woman could have really been her. She felt her underwear being pulled down and trembled helplessly but tried not to as they slid down her legs— Cas pulled them down to her knees, she kept her legs as close together as possibly, squeezing his legs tightly with hers, wishing the room wasn't so bright and wishing she felt more sure of herself, and she felt so _naked_ and fought the urge to cover her chest with her arms. He stopped, looked at her questioningly, seeming to notice that something was wrong.

He moved his hand to gently grasp the back of her neck, his thumb rubbing gently against the delicate skin at the nape of her neck as he looked at her carefully, and even though she was scared, felt exposed, when he touched her so gently, looked at her so fully, she felt braver, remembered how badly she wanted him, how deeply she felt for him. No turning back. She didn't _want_ to turn back. She felt her legs loosen a little, she just focused on his eyes, nothing but his eyes, as she felt him pull the underwear down further and she pulled her legs up a little bit, slowly, one at a time, letting him thread them off of her.

His hand came to rest against where her hip and thigh met, as he kept looking at her in the eye, brushing his thumb back and forth across the skin of her abdomen slowly, over and over, waiting for her to be okay, waiting for her breathing to calm a little, waiting for the fear she was giving off to lessen. And Alex wanted so badly to tell him the truth that welled up inside of her. That she loved him. Instead, she pulled him down by the back of his neck to her, kissed him slowly—slid a hand down his chest, down his abdomen, and his breath caught. She touched him just above where his boxer-briefs began, drew back from the kiss, looking at him meaningfully, anxiously. And he took her meaning—and it was his turn to look afraid, she saw the anxiety flash through his eyes as he reached down, one-handed, shifted around, taking off the last remaining article of clothing.

Scared almost to look at him, to see him totally naked, Alex waited until he'd taken them off completely. She heard the sound of the boxers softly hitting the floor, felt the sides of his knees against the insides of her calves, and her heart jammed in her throat. He hovered over her now, she realized she was gripping his upper arms, and she swallowed, looked down in between their bodies, was startled and awed at the sight of him, completely naked. He was perfect and _stunning_ and she realized anew that _oh my God this is really happening_—she looked at his face with her mouth open, and he looked back at her, worried.

He held himself back from her, keeping his hips far from hers, suddenly seeming to be unsure. "_Closer_, Cas," she told him softly, beckoning him gently, and his eyes flickered downward as he slowly did as she said—and she felt her breathing pick up in anticipation and nervousness as he moved down and forward toward her. His chest touched hers once more, and he settling himself between her legs. She felt the soft nudge of him there at her center—her grip on his arms tightened instinctually, every part of her body was on high alert, begging for the moment she'd been afraid of just a minute ago. His eyes came to hers, and she felt how tensely he held himself, how scared he was. And she thought it was somehow fitting that they would both want it so much and both be so scared when it came down to it, and she was overwhelmed with how thankful she was to have this with _him_.

And just like he'd reassured her a minute ago with gentle touches, she saw that he needed reassurance, too. She searched his eyes, her gaze flickered to the fading bullet wound scar on his chest, then back to his eyes. "I trust you," she whispered honestly, every part of her straining for him now, ready, _so ready_, and his face softened, the fear faded away, and in its place was something else altogether, something that made her stomach flip and breathing pick up. He looped an arm under hers and around her back, his hand coming to rest at the back of her neck, holding her tightly, and she felt him bracing himself, saw how worried he was, how careful he was trying to be.

With aching, gentle slowness, he pushed into her, helplessly letting out a soft little groan even as his head fell toward her shoulder. Gasping, she buried her face in the side of his neck, holding onto his upper arms tightly as he literally became part of her and she of him. It was tortuous, it was divine, the way he felt inside of her.

"Are you… does it…" he panted, barely able to form a sentence, and he was looking at her, breathless and horribly anxious. He didn't even have to finish the question, she knew what he wanted to know—if it was hurting her again, and she couldn't decide, wasn't entirely sure—it was a lot, he stretched her to an impossible maximum, the pressure was _incredible_ and incomparable.

"No it's… you're…" she struggled to speak the english language, her senses were so focused on Castiel inside of her. She realized that she could feel _so much more _than the first time, that she was aware of every sensation, that she was so turned on that even though he was holding completely still inside of her, not even doing anything yet, she was close to going over the edge. "_Ah_…" she moaned helplessly, suddenly desperate, pulling on him, needing him _now_, already knowing it wouldn't be long for her.

Cas responded to her pleading sounds, holding onto her tightly as if for dear life as he began to move himself in and out of her at a deep, slow rhythm and she clung tightly, amazed at him. Strained sounds of raptured disbelief escaped from his mouth, he seemed overwhelmed completely, more so than before. His hips met hers over and over as he buried himself in her again and again, and each time seemed to be unbearable to her, each time was too much and not enough, and he sounded like he was dying, or maybe that was her—she felt the tension mounting in her body fast, pooling in the low parts of her belly, and her eyes fell closed, she anxiously hung onto Castiel with everything she had which was quickly becoming nothing—he had everything that belonged to her—and she gave it freely, losing herself in his arms, alive at last here with him, close to him, _part_ of him.

The feelings he filled her with were suddenly thrusting her into the end of herself—and knowing she was about to reach the stars and that he was right beside her, she let her head fall forward, forehead resting against his shoulder, and she groaningly whispered his name in despair, begging him for just a little more, she was almost there... and he heard the way she said his name in a voice so overwrought with need, need for _him_ and him alone—he moved faster now, almost whimpering because _he couldn't_, and he wasn't himself anymore, not anyone, just the man who loved this woman. Without warning, the dam suddenly broke over her, and a frantic choking gasp came out of her mouth as every atom burst into bliss, as every cell shattered apart—she sobbed out and shuddered uncontrollably as, close behind her, Cas gave a desperate, groaning cry and collapsed down onto her, straining against her a few last times, quaking and shivering and then falling into stillness. They hung onto each other for a long minute, mutually stunned and out of breath.

Underneath him, Alex trembled, completely spent and wrecked and renewed all at once, stunned at how fast it all seemed to be over, how different it was from last time—how much more intimate and fast and urgent it had been, how she felt tears pricking at her eyes—and she wasn't even sure why. Breathless, she let her head fall back and she looked up at him, and he down at her, supporting the back of her head with one of his hands. He was looking at her intensely, emotionally, seeming similarly affected, similarly floored by what they'd just done together. And his arms tightened around her, he looked afraid to let go of her. "I meant what I said," he told her in almost a whisper, and she recognized that he was upset. "I'm going to find a way to change the future," he said, increasingly emphatic. "I'll rip down the laws of nature if I have to. To keep you safe, to protect you."

And the severe, passionate way he said those things, the way he looked at her was almost frightening. Still reeling from what he'd done to her on that bed, from the feeling of him still buried deep inside of her, she searched his eyes, starting to believe, starting to see what she really must mean to him. She thought of the Castiel she'd met in 2014, who had lost his mind and wasted away when she died, she thought of how Cas might have killed Dean earlier that day if she hadn't stopped him.

_Nothing ever meant anything to me until you._

"You really would do anything for me, wouldn't you?" she asked him in softly incredulous epiphany, and somehow, she almost felt afraid of the answer.

He brushed back her hair from her forehead, answered her helplessly, honestly, for better or for worse. "Yes." And he seemed distressed, scared, and she didn't know what of. Wordlessly, she pulled him back down to her, hugging him tightly, feeling his arms envelope her in return, feeling him bow his head down into her shoulder. And she was scared, too. Of the future, of what they were hurtling toward. She didn't feel brave anymore.

_You really would do anything for me, wouldn't you?_

_Yes._

It was only a word—_one _word—but it was the one that would lead him to tear apart Heaven and Earth in the years that followed. The one word that would start things that could never be taken back or changed, no matter how much the two of them would want to.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ And then Sam walked in. LOL JK JK hahaha. In all seriousness, I know CPR. Just in case this scene killed you. GAAAAH CAAAAALEEEEX WHYYYYYY!?WLKDEOIFJOIEF. Whew, omg, what an intense chapter… and it's only gonna get intenserer. It's a real word, I promise... on Planet Me, anyway. _

_What's on tap for next chapter? Bobby stuff. Calex pillow talk. Adam funtimes. Sam and Dean… and will Dean and Alex have a breakthrough or will things get even worse..._

_Dude if you thought this chapter was good you don't even KNOW what the next three (okay, let's be honest… ALL THE FUTURE CHAPTERS EVER) are gonna do to your feels. Thank you and goodnight. P.S. leave a review, idjits, or I'll pump you so full of rock salt you'll crap margaritas for a week. That goes for you too, lurkers! lol :)_

_OH YEAH ALSO if you didn't see (on the tumblr!) I am writing and releasing a WIP next month of Alex and brothers, season 1-3. Keep a look out for __**The Family Business**__. I'm so excited! YAY!_


	36. Can't Run Forever

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 36 / Can't Run Forever

"_There are two things you cannot hide from: God and a dysfunctional family." _  
-R. Alan Woods

* * *

Dust filtered through the air, catching the midmorning light that came through the attic windows. The only sound in the small, cluttered space was of heavy, slowing breathing.

Castiel's head was bowed onto Alex's shoulder, he remained motionless, resting, just listening to the sound of their breathing, feeling the beat of her heart against his chest. His eyes remained shut and he took in every sensation, every feeling. His arms held her close, hers were around him, too—he could feel all of her bare skin, damp with a sheen of perspiration, pressed up against his. And the reality of what he had just done with her washed over him anew as the feelings of bliss faded.

Cas drew his head off of her shoulder and found her eyes waiting to meet his. He felt the stab of guilt in his stomach again, but attempted not to show the emotion he felt. He remembered how deeply it had upset her last time when she'd seen his conflicted feelings. And this time he had _no right_ to be torn or regretful—he had asked her for it, begged for it even, wanted it so much. How could he now sink into a state of shame and confusion in front of her? It would only hurt her and make her feel badly. However, he knew, as soon as their eyes locked, that she knew he was upset. "What's wrong?" she asked him, so softly, concern filling the face he loved so much.

The fact that she so easily saw through him affected him deeply—made him feel even worse. He felt guilt-stricken, just as he had last time. Like he'd done something he should be ashamed of, something wrong. Something sinful. Something that dishonored her and debased her. All the years he'd spent in Heaven, watching over humanity, sex had seemed undignified and low, an act he'd found to be crude and unseemly. He had never understood what led humans to desire it or enjoy it. But now, here on earth, walking in the body of a man, being awakened to a horizon of emotion and sensation and ability… being near her physically, learning the spark of a kiss, tasting the thrill of her touch… falling into her arms and discovering a heaven so unlike the one he had fallen from… he understood now.

But he still struggled. It was one thing to understand _why_ humans craved sex, it was another to attempt to reconcile the love and protectiveness he felt for this one with the things he'd _done _to her. He wasn't sure how it could feel so obscene and divine at the same time, so right and so wrong all at once. Castiel struggled to know how was it that he so all-consumingly craved the closeness of her and yet afterwards was left wondering if it had been a mistake. He thought of the sheerly visceral feelings she gave to him when he was buried inside of her, when she wrapped herself around him and called him forward to a small death he wanted to die over and over again… and yet the feelings and sensations weren't simply physical, couldn't be tied to just his body. Here in her arms, even now despite his guilt, he felt connected in a way beyond physical. As though he were forever bound, all over again to her alone, by what the act meant.

A minute ago he'd told her he would rip down the laws of nature itself to save her from the future they'd seen in 2014, and he wasn't even sure what had prompted him to say that—he'd felt so intensely, like all of his thoughts and feelings were so close to the surface. All he'd wanted to do was give them to her. He wanted to give _everything_ to her.

"Cas?" she asked him, looking at him closely, her eyebrows grew closer still in worry, and he realized he hadn't answered her question. "What is it?"

"I'm…" he didn't know how to reply, he could barely look her in the eyes—she was flushed, naked beneath him, he was over her, _inside _of her, it was mere moments after they had engaged in the most primal human act he could think of. He'd made her writhe and gasp, she'd made him lose himself and make sounds he didn't _know_ how to make. And he couldn't bear the thought that he'd wronged her in any way. Sexual relations outside of marriage were a sin, but sexual relations between an angel and a human… weren't even allowed. And yet here he was, in her arms. "I'm... unsure what to feel right now," he confessed honestly, worried about how she would react.

Her expression softened. "It's okay," she told him quietly, and she seemed to understand how vast and complicated his feelings were, she seemed relieved he didn't say something else. "I know."

She looked like she were feeling shy again, her gaze faltering under his now, and she turned her head down just a little. Cas realized perhaps he should remove himself from her—and almost reluctantly, he moved, shifting himself and with a shudder, he pulled out of her, mouth dropping open a little at the way it felt. Alex took in a sharp breath when he did, bit her lip glancingly, and he missed the look of loss that shimmered over her features. Castiel glanced down at himself, a little breathless again. He had never been unclothed like this before, he was a little surprised at what he saw, then suddenly he didn't understand. He looked Alex in the eye, confused. "How… does that fit inside...?" he asked, almost panicked—her body didn't seem big enough to accommodate—she was staring at him with the most peculiar expression, and then she shocked him when she burst into loud, unrestrained laughter. "What?" he asked, confused. "Did I phrase myself incorrectly?"

She had a hand over her mouth. "No, it's—I—you—" she couldn't stop laughing, a tear leaked out of her eye she laughed so hard. Her eyes were crinkled up, her laugh was so boisterous and carefree. Cas felt his confusion fading, felt his face softening. She suddenly stopped, looking at him in dawning surprise, or maybe that was awe.

"You're… _smiling_," she said, looking up at him with wide, surprised eyes. And Cas realized he felt it—his mouth was quirked up to one side, lips parted, revealing teeth. And to his knowledge, he never had done that before. He realized he could feel the smile everywhere, not just on his face.

"I've... never seen you laugh like that," he said, still thinking about it.

She seemed so different to him in that moment. Completely soft, open, unburdened.

"...I feel happy," she told him, seeming to be surprised to hear herself, too. "Crazy, right? With everything that's happening? But I do. I feel happy right now." She touched his bare shoulder with her fingers, looking at it glancingly, then back up at him, shyly. "Here with you."

Her simple touch and words made his stomach feel as though it turned a flip. He bent his head down, rested his forehead against hers for a moment. He was unsure what to do now, if he should avert his eyes and allow her space, if she wanted him to stay or to go, or… she seemed to read his mind. "Can you just… stay with me awhile?" she asked, and Cas realized that was what he wanted, too. That if she'd asked him to go or if she'd turned away, it would have felt crushing.

And following his instincts, he rolled off of her, laying on his side beside her, keeping his arms around her securely—and she reached across his torso, pulled his discarded trench coat over them like a blanket, her eyes still shy and faltering away from his gaze. She bowed her head down, rested it against his shoulder, ducking his gaze completely.

Underneath the heavy fabric, she was pressed up against him, bare skin to bare skin, and Castiel was in awe of this atmosphere, the feeling of her arms wrapped around his middle, her head resting against his shoulder. His body still echoed with reverberations of what she'd given him. The air around them was thick and sweet, heavy. How could anything in existence be better than this?

"I don't even know your favorite color," she suddenly said, prompting Castiel to become quickly confused.

"What?"

She was quiet for a second. "We've… done this twice now and I… I don't know enough about you, Cas."

"Know enough about me for what?" he questioned, genuinely confused.

She drew back a little, looked him in the eye, regarded him with thoughtfulness, didn't answer him for a long moment. "Just… I want to know you. Everything." She looked at him almost curiously. "I mean… do you miss Heaven? Do you like music? Were you ever an angel kid?" She seemed so lovely to him right then, looking at him like that, wanting to know him, their chests pressed to each other's, her eyes catching the light that streamed in from the window. "I want to know everything that you are," she finished quietly, and she seemed bashful to him again.

Castiel ran his fingers against the side of her face, tucked some errant strands of hair behind her ears. "Ask me whatever you wish to know."

"Why can't I see your wings?" she asked immediately. "I saw the shadow of them once but…" one of her hands was on one of his shoulder blades, "they're not there."

"They're not like the rest of the things in this world—they're neither corporeal or incorporeal." He was frustrated slightly, unable to give her a real answer. "It's hard to explain." He thought back to her questions. _Do you miss Heaven? Do you like music? Were you ever an angel kid?_

"Certain elements of Heaven I miss," he answered slowly, thoughtfully. "Knowing my place. But I don't think I miss Heaven itself." _You weren't there._ He looked at her for a long moment. Alex hung onto his every word as he thought through her other questions out loud. "I've never listened to music intentionally. I was never a child, I was always… what I am now." He paused, remembering she'd said she didn't know his favorite color. "I've never given thought to if I had a favorite color or not," he said honestly.

"Blue. It'd have to be blue, right?" Alex said, smiling like she knew, but Castiel gazed into her eyes and realized he _did _have a favorite color.

"No. Not blue," he told her, and her little smile faded under the intensity of his gaze. "I like the color of your eyes best."

She seemed embarrassed or like she felt discomfort, he saw that her cheeks flushed a little bit. "_Cas_…" she said, and it sounded like she was protesting.

"I made you uncomfortable," Cas said, unsure how he'd done so. Feeling embarrassed, he looked down. "I apologize."

She touched the side of his face, made him look back at her. She held his gaze. "Don't." She looked at him a minute, trying to figure out how to word herself. "You just say things sometimes that… really surprise me. Really make me feel..." she trailed off, her eyes dropping away from his shyly, her hand slipping away from his face and back down to his middle. "I dunno."

"Badly?" Castiel asked, trying to understand.

"No," she said, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "Not badly." She curled her head into his shoulder again, and the room was quiet for a long moment.

"What's…_ your_ favorite color?" he asked her, because he realized he didn't know.

He felt her lips smile against his shoulder. "Blue."

Something swelled in his chest. He was full of a feeling that he only felt for her, and he bowed his head down closer to hers, his nose pressed into the hair at the side of her hair. Her arms tightened around him a little in response and his chest swelled even further. Her hand rested on the side of his waist, her thumb slowly moved back and forth over his skin, and he felt her draw back a little, and he pulled his head back too, looked down at her.

"I wish I could see you," she said earnestly, searching his gaze openly. "The real you."

Cas was caught off guard. "My true form isn't… anything like this," he said, glancing down at himself—the body of the man made of muscle, tissue, flesh. "I don't think you'd like it," he told her, feeling a twinge of sadness. His true form, which he felt so detached from now… was fearsome and alien in comparison to this.

She didn't seem deterred, just looked at him with soft eyes. "If it's you… then I think I would."

Cas looked at her deeply, his eyes flicking between hers. He felt the familiar swell between his ribs. "I think this _is _me, now," he told her, and she seemed mildly taken aback. "I don't think I'll be returning to Heaven anytime soon," he explained, looking down.

"Because you _can't _or because you don't _want_ to?"

"Both," he answered sincerely, not understanding his reasoning completely, just knowing his answer was truthful. He tried to tell her what he felt, everything he was thinking. "Here… on earth… with you… I..." he trailed off, didn't know what he was trying to say. Frustrated, he went silent, and she didn't push him. She was staring into his shoulder, thinking hard.

"Cas?" She looked as though she were gathering the courage to ask him about something. "You said that… that you saw us in twenty-fourteen, right?"

Castiel felt a twinge of dread and general bad feelings. "Yes."

She studied him. "What were we like?"

He frowned a little, trying to decipher her meaning. "Do you mean… in our interactions as a… a couple?"

She nodded hesitatingly, and he thought hard about what words to use to describe what he'd seen. "We seemed… close." He paused in deep thought. "We... lived together and were always with each other, from what I gathered." His mind's eye wandered over the memories, and he remembered seeing himself smiling widely more than once, her too. "We appeared to be happy," he said quietly. "But then you died." His jaw tightened. "And I don't like who I became."

She was silent for a long moment. "Was it my fault you got that way?" She seemed surprisingly emotional, deep in thought, saddened. "I... don't want that to be you. Ever." She blinked a couple times, rapidly, her eyes shining as they looked into his. "You were so lonely and depressed and _broken_."

He brought a hand to the side of her face, disliking the sorrow in her eyes. "I know," Cas said, and he thought of the things he had seen that she hadn't. He'd seen glimpses and flashes of the future, she'd visited it, met the man he supposedly would become. He was silent for a long moment. In the very back of his mind, he realized he had to tell her what he had avoided all this time. "It wasn't just your death that made me that way."

She frowned, grew worried at his tone. "What do you mean?"

He wasn't sure how to tell her, and his hand fell away from her face.

"_What is it?_" she asked anxiously, and she was propped up now on her arm now.

Cas met her waiting gaze slowly, hesitatingly. "I've always felt that I should tell you this but… I never have," he admitted, and looked down, afraid to tell her this for reasons he could not name. His eyes flicked back up to hers. "There was a… child. _Our _child." Her face had gone blank. "You were pregnant, Alex. When I… he… killed you."

"_What_?" she sounded completely stunned, her eyes went back and forth over middle distance in front of her, then she looked back at him, puzzled and almost accusing. "All this time you've known that and never _told _me?"

Cas couldn't hold her gaze. "It seemed too awful."

"You should have _told _me," she said, but she seemed confused.

"Why?" Cas asked her, genuinely wanting to know her reasoning.

She looked at him directly, her face full of a certain kind of mournfulness. "Because it _is _too awful to know that. To know that you… shot me… while I was…" she trailed off. "That's too awful for you to have to carry all by yourself." She let out a heavy breath, looked at him tensely, seemed to be thinking hard about what she was about to say. "For what it's worth Cas… you did the right thing." Cas felt his stomach clench oddly when she said that. "I mean, Croats aren't a joke. And if I were to get turned tomorrow, for instance…. I'd want you to do the same."

"Alex, _no_—"

She cut him off. "I'm just saying. I know it's horrible. And I know you hate it, or the thought of it. But it was… it _is_… the right thing to do. To kill someone if they're gonna turn into someone they're not. It's a mercy kill."

Cas felt himself becoming upset, deeply and Alex seemed to regret what she'd said, if only because of how he reacted. "Hey," she said, cupping the side of his face again. "It's okay."

"No, it's not," Castiel protested, thinking of everything he'd seen, how meaningless and preventable her death had been, how horrible it was knowing that in_ any_ version of their future he was the one who put a gun to her stomach and pulled the trigger, ending her life as well as the spark of their offspring. He couldn't even get his mind to fully comprehend that thought—that they had created a _child_ together, that they were a mother and father together. He barely knew how to have a conversation, how could he ever fill a role as pivotal as a _father_?

Alex's thoughts seemed to be following a similar path, and she looked very uncertain. "I don't know how I feel about that… being pregnant." She seemed almost scared in fact.

Cas remembered. "You didn't know how you felt about it in the future, either."

Her eyes came from someplace far away back to him. "How did you—uh, future you—feel about it?"

Cas thought back. "He—I—seemed to welcome the idea." He didn't understand why.

Alex looked stunned, beside herself almost, deeply affected. She cleared her throat. "I, uh, I don't understand how I could have gotten pregnant, anyway." She frowned a little, looked sort of chagrined. "This may be TMI but… I haven't had my period in years, Cas. That's what I get for skipping meals and never sleeping and always being stressed out, I guess."

Castiel was silent for a minute—he knew that already and it worried him. He knew all about her body, and all the other bodies he encountered. He knew that Alex wasn't the most physically healthy, that she neglected herself almost, barely made time to keep herself alive. Similar to Dean, only while Dean stuffed himself to the brim with foods that would bring on a heart attack, Alex barely remembered to eat food at all. "You should eat and rest more," he told her sadly, to which she gave him a look, like he were asking the impossible. Cas looked down, wishing she could have a different, safer, better life. "You were physically more substantial in the future visions I saw of you. Perhaps that's how you could conceive."

She tilted her head to the side. "Are you saying I was _fat_?" she asked, looking at him oddly, like she was about to either laugh or be angry with him, he wasn't sure which.

All humans were made up of a certain ratio of fat, muscle, tissue—_all_ humans were fat. And bone. And tissue. And muscle. But from the way she asked the question, he understood that she thought he was implying something negative about her body. "Uh… _no_?" he answered, and gauged her reaction. He'd said the correct thing, she looked appeased. "You weighed approximately seventeen pounds more than you do now," he told her factually, and she looked impressed.

"Huh," she said, then almost smiled, the corner of her mouth flicking upwards briefly as she looked down. "Yeah. We really must have been happy." Her smile faded, she looked at him anxiously. "Still, Cas. I gotta wonder. You saw so much more than I did. Of that supposed future. Are we really… doing this?" Her gaze faltered for a moment. "Knowing how it might turn out?"

Without hesitation, Castiel tightened his arms around her, pulled her closer. Their legs touched, their stomachs touched. "I won't let it end that way," he told her intensely, reminding her of what he'd promised.

"But what if you _can't _change it?" she asked him softly, a whisper.

He held her gaze unflinchingly. "I will. I have to." Their eyes remained locked for several seconds longer, and then she closed her eyes, curled into his arms, buried her face in the space between their bodies. He could feel her eyelashes fluttering against his neck when she opened her eyes and blinked.

"I've been thinking about it." She paused. "You did the right thing today. Dean needed a kick in the pants."

Castiel frowned, wondering if she were remembering wrong. "I put him through a wall, I didn't kick his pants."

She pulled away from him, grinning again, and he loved it when she did that. She shook her head, seeming to be amused. "You don't know how cute you are, do you?" she asked.

Castiel faltered. How cute he was? "I'm... not sure how to respond to that question," he told her, but he wasn't frowning or squinting, his face was soft and open, he was watching her expression in rapt attention.

"Hmm." She pressed her lips together, her eyes went to his mouth, then back to his eyes. "An appropriate response would be to kiss me," she said softly, and her voice carried a certain note of enticing that he couldn't resist.

His confusion faded away and he felt the ghost of a smile turning his lips upward. He responded appropriately, kissing her as they lay tangled together beneath the trenchcoat.

* * *

"So all that horror movie crap is real," Adam surmised dubiously, sitting back and trying to process everything Sam had just explained to him. "Dad _hunted_ monsters and ghosts and demons—and you do too." He sat back, looked at Bobby, and then Sam. "Well _that's _easy to believe."

Sam looked at him, a touch of sudden amusement playing on his features. "You were dead in the ground a few hours ago. You should probably broaden your horizons."

He had a point. Adam rolled his eyes, looked away and fell silent, rubbed his hands together anxiously, glanced around the room again. He thought about it again: demons, ghosts, monsters… it was all real and Dad hunted those things. It just seemed a little nutso if you asked Adam, but maybe there _was_ more to life and reality than he'd noticed his first time around. Adam glanced up and to the side, at the hole he'd noticed in the wall—it looked like something big had smashed into it, the plaster was bent inwards.

"I'm doin' a little remodeling," Bobby said sarcastically, and Adam looked at him, saw that the old man was watching him closely, had seen him looking at the hole. Adam looked down and away again, very aware that these people were watching his every damn move—how long had he been here, anyway? Several hours at least, all of which had been spent being looked at weirdly and told about crazy stuff he could barely bring himself to believe. He had to get out of here. The angels would be waiting. He wasn't sure why they weren't here already to get him, unless maybe they couldn't_ find_ him. All he knew was that he had to get back to Mom and see her again. He let out a heavy breath, tried not to look as stressed as he felt.

There was the sound of footsteps descending the stairs, and Alex came into the study at that point. Adam glanced at her sidelong. She had changed clothes and had damp hair. She'd been missing in action for awhile now, what, for several hours at least. Her and that trench coat dude both, the supposed angel. He looked at her oddly, studying her with thinly veiled skepticism. Maybe Sam and Dean as these badass hunter characters he could buy, but _her_? She looked like she weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, like it'd be easy to snap her in half like a twig. "Where've you been?" Sam asked her absently, glancing up at her from his book.

"Uh just, off trying to get my thoughts straight," she said, and Adam was distinctly aware that she sounded like she was lying. She tucked a stray hair behind her ear self-consciously. Sam, however, was distracted. "And then I fell asleep," she continued. "But I can help now."

"Take your pick," Bobby said, and gestured at the books on his desk. She grabbed one, sat in a chair, threw her feet up onto the end of the desk.

"Hey, what have I told you about that?" Bobby griped at her, but there was a hint of a smile hiding behind his beard. Alex took her feet off the desk, shifted in the chair. "Sorry, forgot," she said, smiling a little down into the book. She had a pretty deep voice for a chick, Adam thought to himself. She had a baby face and you expected a high pitched voice to come out of her mouth, but when she spoke and out came this sort of deep, smooth voice, it was a little surprising.

"You seen Cas?" Sam asked her, glancing up at her again distractedly.

At the mention of the angel, Adam saw how she looked sort of guilty. "Yeah. He, uh, went to check on Dean I think," she replied nonchalantly.

"Ah. Well, he's been quiet all day, didn't even seem surprised that I locked him in there," Sam said heavily, scrubbed a hand over his mouth several times. "I'm gonna give him a little longer then try and talk to him."

"Hmm," was Alex's unenthusiastic reply—she looked at her twin for a couple seconds, then returned to looking at the book she'd selected. Adam looked at her closely, trying to figure her out. She struck him as odd. She didn't seem like a girly girl, or a girl, period. She'd changed since he saw her last—she was wearing an oversized black Led Zeppelin shirt with a green flannel shirt thrown over it, jeans that were too long for her legs and bunched up at her ankles around her faded boots. Her hair had been pulled into a damp pony tail that clearly she hadn't even bothered to smooth out. She didn't have pierced ears or painted nails and she wore no makeup. She sort of seemed like what Dean would look like if he'd been a chick, Adam thought with a smirk. You could definitely tell she was John's daughter, her dark features and strong jaw. In fact, Adam realized that for twins, she and Sam didn't really look that much alike to him. It's funny… when Dad had mentioned his other kids, he'd always assumed Sam was the girl—Samantha, right? It made sense at the time.

Adam watched the three of them for about thirty minutes and they pored over a book about end time Mayan prophecies. They argued good naturedly and swapped mostly inane sounding theories in between long patches of studious silence. Even though he could tell they were all under huge amounts of stress and pressure, they seemed to be dealing. From time to time one of the three would glance Adam's way sort of mistrustfully. He'd had about his fill of this, and was going stir-crazy. He was counting down the hours until night time when he thought his best chance at ditching out of here would be.

"Yeah, okay," Sam finally said, sounding sort of tired, sitting back in his chair and rolling his neck as if to ease some kinks. "I need a break. Bobby, I think I'm gonna grab a shower."

"Don't forget to wash behind your ears," Bobby muttered, engrossed in the book he was reading over, then throwing Sam a glance. Sam chuckled at the comment and lumbered out, went upstairs. Adam looked at his half-sister curiously, watched her a couple minutes longer. She was tapping a pen now against a blank notepad she'd made zero notes on, and was leaned over the corner of the desk opposite of him, brow scrunched up. Maybe it was sheer boredom, but he struck up a conversation. "So you're a hunter too, huh?" Adam asked her. She looked up at him dubiously, like she wasn't sure why he was talking to her, or how he knew that, to begin with. "They told me," he explained, blasé. "About Dad and how you all grew up."

Her eyes narrowed just a little. "Yeah, I am," she said neutrally, and left it at that, didn't say anything else, just looked at him. He made a doubtful face, and seeing it, she sat back from the book she was studying. "_What_?"

"Doesn't that rough lifestyle mean you might break a nail?" he asked, and she gave him a mildly annoyed eyebrow raise. "Do I_ look_ like the kind of girl who gives two shits about that kind of crap?"

He smirked a little. "Hmm," he took in her tomboy appearance again and made sure she knew he was insulting her when he said, "No."

She just rolled her eyes and returned to her book. Her pen didn't tap anymore, she just held it still. Adam was quiet a minute. "So, all that stuff Sam said about Dad living life on the road and dragging you guys along with him was true?"

Exasperated, Alex slammed the pen down onto the table, turned her full attention to him, even though she had a bad attitude. "_No_, he made it all up," she said smartly. The Bobby guy gave her a look and Alex's jaw worked weirdly, she looked at Adam again, clearly composing herself and attempting to be polite. "Yeah it's true," she said, but she didn't sound enthusiastic. "My whole life has been spent on the road, slashing and hacking and burying the undead." She said it cynically, like she wasn't proud of it, like the reality of it unsettled her, or like she didn't know what she thought about it. Adam, however, was intrigued. She saw that he was interested and she shook her head, looked over at the open book she'd abandoned. "Trust me, it sounds more glamorous than it was."

"I dunno," Adam said neutrally. "Doesn't sound so bad to me."

"It was," she responded firmly. "Be thankful you had a normal life."

"Normal?" he repeated, insulted.

She looked at him directly. "Yes. _Normal_. The shit I've seen… it's enough to send a person straight to the loony bin." She was beginning to sound like Sam with the lecture and Adam almost rolled his eyes.

"So why are you sitting here in front of me if it's that bad, huh?" Adam prompted, and she frowned oddly, the corners of her mouth shrugging downward really briefly in a way that made it seem like she hadn't thought about that or wasn't sure about the answer. She seemed kind of flippant and shrugged, staring into middle distance. "Honestly… I don't know."

She flipped a page of the book unseeingly, and Adam noticed a dark scar across the palm of one of her hands, indicated it with a nod. "How'd you get that?"

"Long story," she said evasively. She cleared her throat, looked at her scarred up palm and then Adam, with what looked like the beginnings of mild curiosity and maybe resolve. "So. You uh, were going to college huh?" she asked him.

Great. Now she was gonna try and make friends with him. He answered with a simple "Yup."

"… _for_?" she prompted.

He raised his chin a little, looked at her mockingly. "To learn things."

She gave up and rolled her eyes upward. "Don't say I never tried," she muttered, flicked a page further in her book, ignoring him. It was quiet for a minute.

"So if angels are such bad news, why do you keep that one in the trench coat around?" Adam asked, and just like he thought, she reacted immediately, glancing up at him sharply, seeming to be guarded. "He's different than the others," she answered, and Adam smirked again. "Yeah. I _bet,_" he said, his voice dripping with suggestion. Her expression immediately clouded over. Enjoying himself and how easy it was to get a rise out of her, Adam raised his eyebrows up slightly. "You uh, got a thing for him or what? You like older guys?"

Bobby was peering up from underneath the brim of his ball cap, seeming interested now. Alex's eyes looked like they could kill, but she was trying to act like she didn't care. "You wanna keep running your mouth or do I need to shut it for you?" she asked sarcastically.

That was funny, and he had no issue letting her know he thought so. "I'd like to see you try," he said, grinning crookedly at her, a real smile at the thought of this girl trying to pull one over on him. Her eyes flashed at him and Adam just grinned bigger. She was a lot easier to piss off than Sam was. At this point, Alex gave up glaring at him and returned to ignoring him. "I'm uh, kinda famished," he said after a couple beats, and leaned over his knees, looking at her pointedly. "You wanna fix me a sandwich?"

She looked at him like he was an idiot. "You wanna go _screw_ yourself?" she retorted, then jerked her head to her right. "Kitchen's right there Martha Stewart."

"You heard the lady," Bobby told him, his tone more measured and calm than Alex's. Adam pushed himself up and sauntered into the kitchen to make a sandwich. When he had gotten out all the stuff he needed to make something, he turned around and saw that his half-sister had disappeared from the study. He looked at Bobby carefully. The dude was stuck in a wheelchair, but Adam had seen that he had a shotgun laid across his lap. Not really wanting to chance getting shot, Adam decided to bide his time.

He slapped a sandwich together, reflecting on how many times he'd done this—made his own breakfast, lunch, dinner, in his overwhelmingly lonely childhood.

* * *

Alex went downstairs, into the quiet darkened space of Bobby's basement. Adam was such a little punk. He reminded her of that kid in high school who was always making smartass comments and alienating everyone. He definitely fit into this family, that was for sure, especially right now, what with everyone at odds and under each other's skin and beyond stressed out. What a _mess_.

Cas was near the bottom of the stairs, standing still as he watched the panic room silently, and the sight of him did a thousand things to her—calmed her down, thrilled her, made her feel warm, made her forget her annoyance with Adam. He turned when he heard her, his eyes softened, his lips turned up just slightly. Alex gave him the smallest of tense smiles as she reached ground level. She hadn't seen him since she'd gone for a shower. "Any change?" she asked, sort of hopeful.

"No, he's quiet," Castiel replied, looking at her and then back to the panic room, frowning slightly now. "Restless though."

Alex nodded slowly, followed his gaze, feeling the lightness of hope fading out. She wanted to believe in her big brother, believe that he was stronger than this. For once in his life why couldn't he just stop trying to play savior of the world, stop trying to sacrifice himself, try and find another way? _Another way._ She knew Bobby and Sam were trying to act like there was another way, and she wanted to believe there was one, too, but nothing they'd found seemed to offer any hope. And it wasn't like Bobby had _just _started the research either. They'd been trying to figure out a way to kill the devil for _months_ now. Her heart was sinking. Dean wasn't right, _was_ he? That him saying yes to Michael was their only shot left? She refused to believe that, even though somewhere, in the back of her mind… she was starting to.

Beside her, she felt Cas shift, and saw that he was looking at her closely, craning his head down at to the side to try and see her face better. "What is it?" he asked her, seeing her upset expression. She faltered under his gaze, at a loss, and for a moment, she almost told him 'nothing'—but it _wasn't_ nothing. "I just... don't know what's left to do," she told him quietly, facing the truth herself as she spoke the words aloud. She felt almost guilty for the past few hours in which she'd given next to no thought to the apocalypse or her brothers. Instead, she'd lost herself in Castiel's arms and just let go of everything else, had been happy, had forgotten her problems… well, at least some of them. She was now faced with a huge dose of cold reality. "None of those books have the answers we need." She looked at him in silent, tense uncertainty for a minute, then looked down, realizing that she was up against a wall, forced to face the facts. "Maybe that's because there isn't an answer. Maybe there isn't a way to kill the devil." She felt sick saying those things out loud. She looked at Cas, suddenly hopeless. "You're the one who said no one but God could kill the devil, right?"

It was Castiel's turn to look grieved and burdened and disappointed. "Even if he can... he won't."

There was a silence. "What… what options does that leave us, then?" Alex asked, and it was like she was begging Cas for a way out, a miracle, something to give her just a shred of hope. His face was full of sadness, he took a long time to answer, and he seemed to be in deep thought.

"I'm so sorry, Alex," he told her in a weary, strained voice, confusing her—she wasn't sure why he was apologizing, exactly—if it was because he didn't know an answer, or because he couldn't do anything to help her, or if he didn't like seeing her sad... or maybe something else. He drew a deep breath, his forehead rigid, and what he said next stunned her. "I let Sam out of the panic room all those month ago," he told her, holding her gaze even though he was agonized. "_I_ allowed him to go free, which enabled him to kill Lilith, break the final seal, bring forth Lucifer from below." Alex looked at him wide-eyed—because she'd always suspected it had been an angel who'd broken Sam out, but she hadn't known it was _him_. "Everything that happened that night... was my fault," he said.

Castiel was shamefaced. "I never wanted you or your brothers to know what I did… and I tried to make it right by taking you to Sam, giving you and Dean a chance to stop him. I tried to undo the damage that I caused." He let out a breath, looked around. "Obviously, I wasn't able to." He couldn't look at her now. "I just want you to know how much I regret what I did. I always have. But moreso now than ever." His jaw tightened, he shook his head slowly. "If I had listened to my instincts, to you and Dean… Lucifer would still be sealed away. We wouldn't be facing this dilemma at all."

Alex's mouth had dropped open softly, her eyes flickered back and forth between both of his—she was shocked at the confessions he was making today. "So you think this is all _your _fault?" she asked in soft disbelief.

Obviously he did, from the look on his face. "I'm certainly not without blame," he told her, and she realized that she couldn't exactly disagree with him. He _did_ have a part to play in it. But the truth was that they all did. "Even if that's true," she said, unable to make him feel worse by saying he was right, "...we can't change the past."

"I know that," he told her quietly, and his eyes flickered up to hers somberly. "I know that well."

There was another pause where Alex was both trying to figure out how to feel about this latest development and also wracking her brain for a way to convince Cas that he wasn't completely at fault. "If you didn't let Sam out, some other angel would have," she reasoned. "We both know that." She looked at him sadly, because he didn't look comforted in the least. Her voice softened. "Not one single person is to blame for this situation we're in," she told him, and searched his gaze. "Least of all you." It was true—Castiel had just been going along with what he thought was right, he'd been naive and shortsighted, afraid to stand on his own two feet after a lifetime of following orders. She knew that. He wasn't the one who had raised Lucifer. There had been so many players involved in the plot—Dean, Sam, Ruby, Lilith, Raphael, Zachariah, maybe more. Maybe her. Maybe, if she'd followed Sam, not let Dean's death tear them apart, Sam wouldn't have been led astray by Ruby. All she knew was that the angel she loved was blaming himself for it all.

Not knowing what else to do, Alex laid a hand on the side of Castiel's neck, stroking her thumb down across his skin softly, and he appeared to be reluctant to accept the affection, his features wracked with guilt. "We're going to get through this Cas, okay?" she looked at him anxiously. "Somehow." She might not have believed it herself, but she wanted _one_ of them to have hope at least. She was so blindsided by the things she'd learned today, the things he'd told her, and now _this_. He took her hand and gently pulled it off of his neck, turned her hand palm-up and ran two fingers from his other hand over the deep scar tissue there in the center. He said nothing, just contemplated the scar, then met her gaze again. His eyes were full of turmoil and uncertainty, doubt, fear. All the things that she was feeling, too.

Alex's jaw clenched as she looked at Cas, filled with dread. She took his hand, stopping him mid-stroke, and he looked up at her questioningly. "I'm going to ask you something and I need you to be one hundred percent honest with me," she told him, about to trust him with a question she was afraid to ask anyone but him. She slowly let go of his hand, hugged herself, nervous.

"I don't… I don't really want to even think about asking you this," she admitted. He waited, frowning slightly, and she felt her stomach twist in sickened nausea. "But I think at this point… I have to." She swallowed. "Was… was Anna right?" she asked, and her voice dropped to a whisper.

"About what?" Castiel's frown deepened measuredly as he understood what she was asking. "About _killing Sam_?"

She just looked down, unable to believe herself, unable to believe she could actually consider it, and feeling worse because Cas sounded shocked at her. "It's just that… if there's not a way for us to kill the devil, do we have to think about… making sure he doesn't get his true vessel?" She looked at him again, wracked with anxiety. Cas looked entirely stunned at what she was saying and it only increased the guilty sadness she was drowning in—that, and how he wasn't telling her no, which was what she wanted to hear. "I don't want to have to consider it at all," she told him truthfully, emphatic, hoping he would believe her. She was quickly growing emotional. "God _help_ _me_ I don't." She seemed to realize the irony of what she'd said—God wouldn't help—and she became quiet, her eyes stinging with tears. She bowed her head. She couldn't face this. "That's my big brother," she said hollowly, voice cracking. "I don't want to lose him."

She sat down on the stairs, put her head in her hands, miserable, almost in tears. "I don't want to lose _either _of them. I _can't_." She felt Castiel sit down beside her. He was quiet for a moment, and then she felt his hand come to rest on the back of her shoulder gently, and she glanced at him, overwhelmed, feeling like an impossible weight rested on her shoulders. "I'll help you," he told her quietly. "We'll find another way."

Alex looked at him, unsure how she could love him any more than she did right then—for how hard he was trying, for how much he was giving her, for how obvious it was that he felt uncertain, too, but was going out of his way to comfort her. And it did comfort her, a little, just to know he was there with her and committed to helping her and her family. But the ever-increasing pit was in her stomach, the whisper-soft voice in the back of her mind kept repeating _there _is_ no other way. It's only a matter of time before your brothers are both gone, taken, destroyed. And maybe not just them. _ Alex looked at Cas, suddenly wanting to reach out and hold onto him and never let go. Just wanting to be with him and let the problems of the world fade out. She may have wanted that, but she wasn't an idealist. She knew that she couldn't run away from this, from _any_ of it. There was no way to know how this would turn out, she realized with ever-increasing despair. Maybe all she could do was hold on as long as she could to what she had before the inevitable loss.

And she leaned into her angel, circling her arms around him tightly, grieving, afraid, and unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Wondering if, in the crossfire, she would lose Castiel too.

* * *

Adam picked at the crappy sandwich he'd thrown together, then set it down completely, not really hungry anymore. The sun had just set, and the house was dark now. He sat at the kitchen table, frustrated as hell. He glanced across the house, into the study, where Bobby turned around his chair, facing the bookshelf. And Adam suddenly realized this could be his chance. He might not get another, these people were like hawks. Heart beating fast, thinking of seeing his mom again and being at peace in the afterlife once again, he stood up and stole across the creaky old floor, toward the back door, reached for the doorknob and then—

"Going somewhere?" Sam asked, freezing Adam in his steps. _Shit._

Caught and he knew it, Adam turned around, kicking himself mentally but trying to act casual. Sam stood there, eyebrows raised expectantly. "Uh, yeah… out for a… beer," Adam said lamely, the first thing that popped into his head. Sam _had _to know that was a lie, but didn't call him on it.

"Great, we got beer. Have a seat," Sam said in somewhat strained pleasantness, and Adam looked the guy up and down again—dude had to be at least two-hundred pounds of solid muscle. Running would be a bad idea. Resigned to his crap luck, Adam gave up and went back to the table reluctantly as Sam cracked the refrigerator open. "You know, you pitched this whole dewy-eyed bromance thing, but the truth is, I'm on lockdown, aren't I?" Adam muttered, casting cagey glances around, sitting with his shoulders hunched forward.

"I wouldn't put it that way," Sam said, bringing a beer and setting it on the table in front of Adam, who stared at it unmovingly. He didn't really want a beer, he wanted to get o_ut of here_ and away from these people. Sam was clearing his throat and sitting down across from Adam, looking like he was about to attempt another conversation. "Adam, you may not believe it," Sam started, "but Dad was trying to protect you. Keeping you from all of this."

Adam didn't exactly feel in the chatty mood and looked at his half-brother with a rude, disinterested expression. "Yeah well, I guess the monster that ate me didn't get_ that _memo." Sam's face twisted in empathy, and Adam felt his stomach turn. "You remember that," Sam commented quietly, seeming to be bothered by it and surprised even.

"Kinda hard to forget, Sam," Adam drawled in cool anger, putting on the guilt trip.

"I'm sorry that happened to you," Sam told him earnestly—as if he actually cared, what a _joke_. "Still, trust me," Sam said, and there was a quiet bitterness there. "The one thing worse than seeing Dad once a year—" Sam's face was very serious now "—was seeing him _all_ year."

Adam looked at his half-brother in thinly veiled distaste—how dare this jackass sit there and look at him with that wounded dog expression, acting like he knew Adam's pain, loneliness, the huge hole in his heart? "Do you know how full of crap you are?" Adam asked acidly, and Sam's expression grew confused. Adam wanted to kick him in the face.

In frosty contempt, he stared Sam down, incensed. "See, it was me and it was my mom," Adam told him. "That's _it_." He paused for emphasis—he hadn't had siblings to lean on like Sam had, or a dad for the first twelve years of his life. "She worked the graveyard shift at the hospital. I cooked my own dinners. I put myself to bed." Adam was bitter. "So you can say whatever you want about our dad, but the truth is, I would have taken anything."

Sam looked like he thought Adam must be crazy. "_Anything_?" He struggled silently for a second, looking a little on the annoyed side now. "You got things we never _did_, do you understand that?" The nice-guy persona was fading a little, into a more assertive, here's-how-it-is kind of attitude. "Dad wasn't who you think he was, Adam. Sounds like he showed up and played father of the year for a couple days with you here and there. But with us? He ignored us on a day-to-day basis, forgot our birthdays, acted like we were his personal little army detail, like he was our _drill sergeant_, not our dad. I left home when I was eighteen because I hated it so much." Sam paused and let out a heavy breath through his nose, looking disgusted. "He pretty much verbally abused me, and he pretty much _physically _abused Dean and Alex."

Adam managed to hide his surprise and look unaffected by everything Sam had just said, even though he felt immediately disillusioned, surprised. And not wanting Sam to know that, Adam fired back the first horrible thing he could think of, trying to keep his half-brother at a safe arm's length, trying not to let himself be open or vulnerable. "Yeah, well, they probably deserved it," he said, and let his mouth twitch into a lifeless little smile. As predicted, Sam looked angry, but visibly reined himself in.

"If you would just knock off the tough guy BS for _one second_, Adam…" Sam said, short on patience but trying, leaning further across the table, trying to get Adam to knock it off, which only made Adam go harder.

"What?" Adam asked flippantly. "You want me to tell you about all my crippling inner sadness? You want me to care about your life? Sorry but I don't even know you."

Increasingly frustrated, Sam wet his lips. "Look, all I'm saying is if we had known we had a brother—"

"Well, you _didn't_, so…"

"—we would have _found_ you," Sam interrupted emphatically, angrily. Adam scoffed, shook his head. This was ridiculous. Sam talked a big game but it was pointless—it was the past and what was done was done. Adam had died at the hand of some monster ghoul thing, he'd watched his mom beg for help as she'd been eaten alive. And the kicker was that and his supposed family who _hunted_ monsters and creatures—had been nowhere to be found. At this point, Adam just wished Sam would fuck off.

"Look, I can't change the past," Sam said trying hard to be calm, and his gentle, empathetic tone was like nails on a chalkboard to Adam. "I wish I could. But... from here on out—"

"_What_?" Adam interrupted challengingly, staring Sam down. "We gonna hop in the family truckster? Pop on down to Wally World?"

Sam reacted just like Adam had intended. He shook his head, disappointed and rejected, discouraged. He sat back, no longer leaning over the table. "Tell you one thing, with an attitude like that... you would have fit right in around here." He looked at Adam sort of sadly, heaved a sigh, then stood up. "Don't go anywhere," he told him, glancing toward the study, where Bobby was once again sitting at his desk.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Adam muttered, looking at Bobby, who watched him closely from across the house.

* * *

Sam went downstairs, and he had to pause, let Alex and Cas get up from where they'd been sitting. It was dark, but he almost thought it looked like she'd had her head on the angel's shoulder, like they'd been sort of arm in arm. And he felt himself soften a little bit. It did his heart good to see someone being so gentle and sweet with his sister—and more than ever he felt like she deserved that kind of stuff after finding out about what Dad did to her and Dean. He felt his insides darken at that thought. _Damn._ Today had been sort of horrible, for all of them, but especially her, huh? Not only did her oldest brother hurt her like Dad apparently used to, but Adam showed up and had thrown a whole new wrench into the mix. No wonder Alex had gone off for a few hours to be alone. Sam froze mid-step. _Wait_. Cas had been gone the whole time Alex had been, hadn't he?

Cas and Alex looked at him from where they'd moved to, a little oddly, Alex in particular seemed to be wondering what he was doing stopping in the middle of the stairs and staring like that. Sam forced himself to walk down the rest of the way, trying to hide his surprise at his dawning epiphany. He wasn't sure why he hadn't realized it before just now, and he really wished he _hadn't_ realized, either. It embarrassed him a little, realizing that's why Alex had changed clothes and why Cas's hair looked a little wilder than normal. And Sam suddenly remembered how he thought he'd heard something drop onto the floor upstairs at one point when he'd been on the second floor in the bathroom... and he'd written it off as house-settling noises, but now he realized wow, that sound sort of made him think of shoes hitting the floor… had that been… _them_?

"Uh, hi guys," Sam said, trying to sound nonchalant and casual, fill the silence that felt so awkward to him. His weird, stilted tone and way his voice sort of squeaked received a funny look from his sister.

"… hi…?" Alex repeated back to him, unsure what he was doing—her eyes were squinted up a little, and she was clearly both amused and perplexed.

Sam cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck, tried to push it all out of his mind, tried not to look at either of the pair too closely. Uncomfortable, he expelled a breath through puffed cheeks, looked in the direction of the panic room. "I'm, uh, gonna try and talk some sense into him," he said gesturing toward where Dean was, already dreading it, but trying to just stay focused. "He's had awhile to think, maybe he'll come around."

"Yeah, okay," Alex said, her amusement faded as she realized why Sam was downstairs. "I'll come with you." She was looking at him with what was definitely worry and concern.

"You sure?" Sam asked, hesitating, forgetting his unease—because after everything that had happened today and how mad Alex had to be at Dean right now, he didn't want her to have to be part of this if she didn't want to. It would be nice to have some backup though, and maybe with both of them in there, Dean might actually listen… still, Sam could do this on his own, if he had to. But it turned out that he wouldn't have to. "Yeah," his sister replied without hesitation, then looked at him like she was surprised at him. "You're not going in there_ alone_," she told him simply, calmly, then followed up with a "No way."

Sam felt a surge of powerful emotion at her immediate, firm response—because he got what she was saying to him: that he didn't have to shoulder this situation on his own. And Sam was so affected that couldn't look at her for a second—he wasn't sure when it had become him and her against Dean, but he was glad at least one of his siblings wasn't giving up on him. "Okay," Sam said, and cleared his throat again. "Yeah. All right. Let's see what we can do." He drew in another bracing breath and led the way to the panic room, glanced at his twin one more time.

"Should I come in with you?" Castiel asked Alex, and his deep, husky voice was overlaid in poorly disguised worry. Sam paused, only a few feet from the door to the panic room. Alex had turned to Cas, the two of them were exchanging a significant look.

"It's... not a good idea for him to see us together right now," his sister told the angel quietly, and Cas's expression reflected the pain that her voice held. "It'll just set him off more," she said softly, then followed up with a very earnest, "I wish it weren't like that."

Sam stood there awkwardly, feeling like he was intruding on a private moment as Cas looked at Alex gently. "Perhaps it won't always be," he said, and falteringly touched her arm. Sam was surprised when his sister, seemingly on impulse, stepped forward to the angel, tilted her face up to his and kissed him. They both moved close to each other at the same moment, leaving no space between them at all, and Cas's hand moved from her arm to the side of her neck as he accepted and returned the kiss, his thumb against her jaw. One of Alex's hands rested loosely on his chest and Cas grasped her wrist, just held onto her—it was an absolutely soft, intimate kiss that they lingered in for a long minute.

Sam looked away after he stared for a second; he was embarrassed all over again. He'd always thought it was weird to see Dean with girls—kissing them, trying to put the moves on them, etcetera—but it was nothing, it wasn't anywhere _near _as strange as this was, seeing his sister kissing Castiel… and like_ that_, with so much tender emotion and soulfulness. And honestly, it was surprising how much meaning and measure Cas kissed her with, too. Again, Sam rubbed the back of his neck as he looked down at the ground, waited for them to finish. He heard the rustle of clothing as they parted, then heard Castiel tell her, almost a whisper, "I'll be right here."

He heard a little smile on her voice when she quietly replied, "I know you will be."

There was another long pause and Sam just kept staring at the floor until he heard footsteps. Sam looked up cautiously, saw Alex was headed his way, looking at him sort of bashfully, her expression telling him _don't say anything about that, okay_? And Sam didn't, just cast a glance back at Cas, who looked more than just worried now—genuinely angry, his angry stare aimed at the panic room door silently. Sam wasn't sure exactly when this had all started between his sister and the angel, but he really wanted to know, if only for curiosity's sake. They had what seemed to be a really strong bond, and Sam wasn't sure why he hadn't noticed it until more recently. Now wasn't the time to wonder, though.

Sliding the heavy lock away and yanking down on the heavy handle, Sam swung the panic room door open.

In the middle of the room inside, Dean stood there and looked back at them conspiratorially, his eyes flickering over his siblings, then resting on Cas, who was scowling at him silently from outside of the doorway. Alex and Sam stepped over the raised threshold of the door as Dean's eyes narrowed just slightly and he gave Cas a look. "Well, Cas, not for nothing… but the last person who looked at me like that…" he shrugged mockingly. "I got laid."

Sam looked at Dean, wide-eyed, trying to see if Dean had any clue what he was talking about—Alex looked similarly mortified, but Dean was just smirking at Cas, being an asshole. Oh my _God_, if only Dean knew how appropriate that comment was... uncomfortable yet again, Sam glanced at Cas. "Uh, why don't you, uh, go keep an eye on Adam?"

Cas hesitated, looked at Alex, who glanced at her twin, then back at Cas, giving him a little nod. "We're fine."

And grudgingly, Cas nodded, closed the door without touching it. Dean spread his arms, indicating the panic room, and clearly his mood wasn't vastly improved since earlier. "Is this really necessary?" he asked.

"You tell us," Alex replied—she stood near the edge of the room, keeping her distance and not masking how beyond unhappy she was with him right now. Dean seemed to shrink a little underneath the way she regarded him, he looked down. He lost a little of his steam. "Don't look at me like that," he told her. He sounded ashamed, and Sam knew it was because of what he'd done earlier, shoving her—but Dean avoided the subject altogether, skipped ahead to the Michael topic. "I was trying to do the right thing," he said softly. "What I'm supposed to do."

Not matching his quiet tone, Alex crossed her arms, looking at him demanding. "What, all the sudden_ you _believe in destiny?"

"I got my reasons," he told her defensively, and she threw a hand up, prompting him to please, go ahead and share with the class.

Dean looked at his sister almost pleadingly. "I mean you were _there_, Al, I shouldn't have to convince you. You saw the future that I saw, remember? You saw me not saying yes and where _that _got the planet." He threw a hand out, indicating Sam. "We both saw him—" Dean said, and Sam felt his stomach turn, realizing what Dean was talking about. Alex's face fell as Dean continued. "And how it _wasn't_ him—it was _Lucifer_. Now you tell me how I can just sit back and let that happen."

Alex visibly struggled to find an answer for Dean, and Sam looked at his little sister, pained. He knew this had to be beyond hard time for her. He'd never spoken with her one-on-one about the whole Lucifer thing but every time it got brought up with the three of them, he could see his twin shutting down. She'd either mentally check out or physically walk away. And he couldn't blame her. He barely knew how to face the idea that Satan wanted him, either. "We're working on finding another way," Alex said, trying to sound assured, but not quite getting there. "One where you live, Sam lives—_everyone_ lives."

Dean shook his head, looked down again, smiled softly, a bitter little expression. "That plan doesn't exist, and you know it. We've tried to find another way, we have. Gave it our best shot. And I have less choice than I did yesterday, what with this angelic Plan B upstairs…" he raised his eyebrows for emphasis, looked at Sam now. "And I am _not_ letting him do it, okay?"

"Who, Adam?" Sam asked. "No, I'm... I'm not, either." Did Dean honestly think he would let that happen?

"No, you're not getting me," Dean muttered, and turned around, walked away slowly, scratching his head absently.

"Oh, no, no, I 'get' you perfectly," Sam said, paused for emphasis. "But I'm not letting _you_ do it, either."

Dean got to the table, turned around, leaned against it, looked at his siblings, dead serious. "That kid's not taking a bullet for me."

"Why do _either _of you have to do it?" Alex asked, exasperated, and Dean's previous gentle, quiet tone was gone. "Oh good luck talking him out of it, the angels made _damn _sure he'd do what they wanted, hanging seeing his dead mom over his head," he ranted, then leaned forward, looked at each sibling with a defiant glare. "It's _me_ or it's _him_. And it's got to be me." He leaned back, turned his hands palm up, in a gesture that seemed to say he saw no other way. "Look, I'm tired of being the reason so many people have eaten dust, okay?"

"Dean…" Sam started, but was cut off. "I'm serious," Dean said, deadly quiet again. "I mean, think about how many people we've gotten killed, Sam. Mom, Dad, Jess, Jo, Ellen." Each name he said was like a sledgehammer to the stomach. "Should I keep going?" Dean asked, and Alex came forward finally, stood beside Sam. "We didn't kill them," she protested, and Sam quickly added, "It's not like we pulled the trigger."

Dean didn't listen to either of them even for a second. "We might as well have. I'm_ tired_, guys." He paused, let it sink in, and he looked years older than he was. "I'm tired of fighting who I'm supposed to be."

"This isn't who you're supposed to be!" Alex exploded, emotional and emphatic and obviously angry. Dean just looked at her, unaffected almost. And maybe his lack of reaction was what was the most troubling. "You don't have this on you, Al," he said faintly. "You can't possibly understand what I'm going through. I just wanna save who I can, all right?" He wet his lips, looked at Sam, seeming to be pained. "How can I make either of you two understand?"

"We _do_ understand," Sam retorted a little sharply, then took a second to compose himself. "But if you could take _half a second_ and stop trying to sacrifice yourself for a change, maybe this family could actually stick_ together_." He looked at Dean long and hard. "Can we please just give that a shot?"

Dean was shaking his head, looking down to the floor beside his foot. "I don't think so," he said simply, and Sam clenched his jaw, keeping his mouth shut so he didn't say something that would only make things worse. Dean looked up and suddenly shut his eyes for a second as his shoulders fell slightly. He appeared to be chagrined. "Al… please don't cry," he said quietly, and Sam quickly looked over at his twin, saw that she had silent tears running down her cheeks, a heartbroken expression on her face.

"I _believed_ in you," she told their Dean brokenly, and a muscle jerked in his cheek, he met her gaze briefly, agonized.

He looked down, drew his mouth into a hard line, his voice lowered to a barely audible volume. "No you didn't," he said. "And you know what? That's what it boils down to, kiddo. Belief. And I… I just don't believe anymore, either."

"In what?" Sam asked, dreading the answer.

Dean looked up, and he seemed to be broken up completely, reluctant to answer. "In either of you," he finally said, a whispered low blow. But what he said next was worse. "But especially in you, Sam." It felt like the floor had disappeared beneath Sam's feet and he was falling—his chest seized up in pain when Dean said that. "I mean, I _don't,_" Dean said, and it was with brutal, heartbreaking honestly. Not anger, not a general dick attitude. He was being totally real, and that's what hurt the most. "I don't know whether it's gonna be demon blood or some other demon chick, or using me or Alex against you or _what_, but… I do know they're gonna find a way to turn you."

"So you're saying I'm not strong enough," Sam said, blinking away the sting of tears.

"You're angry, you're self-righteous," Dean told him, in that same quiet, matter-of-fact sad way. "Lucifer's gonna wear you to the prom, man. It's just a matter of time."

Alex looked at her twin in quiet horror and Sam shook his head, unable to hear this, hating how certain Dean was and how Alex was_ listening_ to him, too. "Don't say that to me," he begged his brother, voice hovering above a whisper. "Don't put that on me. Not you… of _all_ people."

"I don't want to," Dean answered slowly. "But it's the truth. And when Satan takes you over, there's got to be somebody there to fight him, and it ain't gonna be that scrawny little kid. No way. Lucifer'd eat him for breakfast." He managed a self-deprecating smile. "So, it's got to be me. At least with me as Michael, we stand a chance of killing the devil. I may not be as big as you are, but I'm your big brother. I've always been able to take you down, right?" He attempted a wavering smile, trying to bridge the gap between this horrible place they were in to some fond memories of when they always used to wrestle and play fight. It didn't work—Sam was struggling to compose himself, and Dean looked like he realized he shouldn't have even tried.

Dean heaved a jaded breath. "Listen, this is my decision, not either of yours. I know you're just trying to… to look out for me." He paused, cold again. "But you don't get to decide this." He looked at Alex. "Didn't you say something like that to me just yesterday?" he asked, and Alex's jaw worked oddly, she looked at Dean in a deeply wounded, betrayed expression, as if she were wondering _how could you_? And wordlessly, she teared up, turned away and shoved the door open, leaving them alone and slamming the panic room door behind herself.

Dean looked at the closed door, his expression strange. Sam shook his head, a soft, humorless little huff of air meant to be a laugh escaping his lips. "You know, you're getting pretty good at this, Dean," he said softly.

"What?"

"Pushing the people who love you away." Sam looked at his brother accusingly, and Dean just gave him attitude, sauntered over to the desk, pretended to be interested in the book that was there. "Why are _you_ still here then?"

Sam pushed aside his urge to hit his brother, and replied steadily, even if he was a little strained. "I'm disappointed in you. But I'm not giving up on you."

Dean's eyebrows shrugged up and down in a display of chagrin as he looked over his shoulder in what appeared to be little interest. "Huh, well. You're the last one left who's in _that_ club." He looked at Sam sullenly, turned around, crossed his arms. "Sorry to tell you but I'm just gonna let you down. It's what I do best."

"Enough with the _pity party_," Sam told him intensely, gave his brother a pointed stare. "So you think I'm gonna give up and say yes… what happens to Alex, huh, when we're both dead or gone?"

Dean went to the little cot, sat down with his feet far apart, elbows resting on his knees. "She's a big girl, she can take care of herself," he said, but it sounded like he were reciting lines off a script—his heart wasn't in it.

Sam called him on it. "Do you actually believe that?" he questioned incredulously, went a little closer to his seemingly unreachable brother. "Dean just a couple years ago she was a totally different girl, or have you forgotten? Don't let her fool you—she depends on us—and you—a lot more than you think."

"Nah," Dean said bitterly, still not looking at Sam. "She's got trenchcoat." He looked up at Sam at that point closely. "By the way… did you know about that?" Sam's expression gave him away and Dean's mouth turned downwards in distaste and anger. "Yeah, thanks for the heads up."

Sam was at a loss. "I don't get why you're being like this about them."

Dean's eyebrows shot up, like he couldn't believe what Sam had just said to them. He sat up straight as his expression quickly turned from surprise to a deep glare. "Because it's_ wrong_, as wrong as you and Ruby was."

It was Sam's turn to be surprised. He looked at his brother like he was insane. "Cas isn't a _demon_ who is using Alex to start the _apocalypse_."

"No, he's just using her," Dean fired back adamantly.

Sam grabbed the chair from the desk, sat down in it, looked at Dean thoroughly, emphatic, his voice and even the way he sat distinctly lecturing. "Dean. Cas took a frigging_ bullet _for her. He gave her the ability to _speak_, he's healed her and saved her life—_our_ lives—a bunch of times. He went against Heaven for us and ever since then has been trying to help us find a way to stop the apocalypse… if anything, _we're_ using _him_."

Dean looked distinctly ruffled by that thought and acted like it sounded stupid. "_Please_," he muttered, and quickly switched topics, trying to hide what clearly looked like the beginnings of a guilty conscience. "Forget about Cas," he said gruffly. "Just think about this, Sam. If you and I both say yes, those jackass angels don't get a chance to mess with our sister. I mean they got Adam, they turned him against us. It's only a matter of time before they get their claws in her and use her to make us do what they want, or worse, kill her."

Sam couldn't argue with that, but still, Dean seemed to be forgetting something. "So… save Alex… but let half the planet burn?" he asked, doubtful, wondering if Dean really meant that.

His brother looked at him, pained, surprisingly vulnerable. Soft again, sad. "She's our_ sister_, Sam. I spent my whole life trying to protect you both and if I can't save both of you, at least I can save one. Maybe I can even make a deal, make sure she gets a Heaven or, I dunno I—I just..." he seemed to be out of steam and rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand before continuing. "I'm just saying… if only one Winchester can survive this mess… it's gotta be her, man." He looked at Sam despairingly. "Look me in the eye and tell me you don't think the same thing."

Sam couldn't answer for a second, because he knew what Dean meant but… "It's the lives of half the people on the planet for hers," he protested.

"I know it is," Dean said, looked down. "She deserves to live. I don't." He looked up at Sam sadly. "And I'm not sure if you do either."

"How can you_ say _that?" Sam asked, cut to his heart by Dean's words.

"Because it's the truth. And you know it is." Dean looked at him without a trace of anger. Just sadness. And Sam thought about the demon blood and Ruby and the things he'd done as a kid and how he'd let Jess die and how he'd failed to bring Dean back from Hell on his own and how he'd abandoned his sister when she'd needed him the most. And Sam said nothing for a long moment, just looked down, rested an elbow on his knee and moved his hand across his mouth in distressed thoughtfulness.

Dean leaned forward over his knees. "We can't say no forever, Sam, do you get that? They'll keep upping the ante, they'll start killing everyone and everything we know and love to get us to do this. They are _gonna_ make us do this. No ifs, ands, or buts." Dean's eyebrows were raised up high. "Now we can decide to do this together, on _our_ terms, save a lot of people in the process..." he searched Sam's eyes intensely, "Or we can stand by and letting someone _bully_ us into doing it." Sam looked at his brother tensely, trying not to be swayed. "I'm gonna do it," Dean told him decidedly. "I am. So what do you say, huh Sammy?" Dean almost seemed pleading, and for a second, Sam _was_ considering. "You said you wanted us to stick together, so... here's your chance." Dean looked at Sam, waited for his response.

And Sam was suddenly reeling, unable to believe he could even consider becoming Satan's vessel, unable his brother would try and talk him into it. Sam stood up from the chair, almost knocking it over, and he walked a couple paces off, quickly becoming enraged at himself. "_No_, Dean." Sam was adamant and angry, but most of all, betrayed. "That's _not_ an option for me, okay? Not now, not _ever_."

Still sitting, hands on his knees now, Dean looked like he had expected as much and nodded, shrugged. "If you get our sister hurt or killed in this process… so help me Sam, I'll never forgive you."

Sam raised his chin, looked down his nose at his brother. "I'm not the one who's hurting her, though, am I, Dean?"

Dean looked at Sam sharply, but said nothing. His glare wavered and he looked away, shoulders heavy and slumped forward as if in defeat. And Sam was suddenly hurtling to the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, to heartbreak and sadness again. He looked at his big brother, grieved to his soul. "What _happened_ to you?" he asked, and Dean said nothing, just shook his head, kept it bowed. How was it, even when his brother was being the world's biggest dick, Sam could feel so bad for him? He paused for a long moment, grew introspective as he watched his brother closely. "Why didn't you ever tell me about Dad?" he asked softly, hesitatingly. "What he did to you?"

Dean immediately became visibly guarded. "Ah come on," he said, feigning disinterest, batting away an invisible something with his hand. "You didn't need to know."

Sam disagreed, stared at his brother earnestly. "If I had known, I would have found a way to get us _away_ from Dad," he said, then paused, realizing. "Maybe that's why you never told me." Dean made no reply, and Sam thought back to nineteen ninety-nine again. He closed his eyes briefly, opened them back up, fighting a painful feeling in his throat. "She… she told me she fell down some stairs. That time you went away on that road trip and met Lisa, remember?" He had Dean's attention. "That was Dad, huh?" Sam shook his head in disbelief, disgust, sadness.

And even though it was clear that Dean had mixed feelings, he looked at Sam sharply. "Dad was a hero," he replied defensively. "He was a good man."

Indignant anger boiled in Sam's veins. "Then why did you have to protect her from him?" he asked very loudly.

"Listen... Dad had his faults, I know that," Dean said heavily. "He was pretty screwed in the head from the job, from what happened to Mom, to us. It's a wonder he wasn't worse."

Sam stared at his brother sorrowfully. "All I'm hearing are excuses," he told him, and his heart ached viscerally. "He never should have laid a finger on her. Or you. I'm sorry."

Dean glanced up in Sam's direction, wouldn't look him in the eye. "Yeah. Well. I'm sorry too."

"It never should have happened," Sam told him intensely, disliking how Dean just seemed to be okay with the fact that that things had been that way.

Dean almost smirked. "Yeah, and you know what else shouldn't have happened? You and me, both knocking her down. Even once, man." And the realization that yes, both of them had purposefully hit or shoved their sister… was enough to break Sam's heart. Dean obviously had taken it to heart a lot more than he had shown. He had his head in his hand again, and Sam remembered, pained, when he'd backhanded her across the face when he'd been high on demon blood. He'd never forgiven himself for that and never would.

Dean let out a gruff sounding breath, composing himself and clasping his hands between his knees, refocusing. "You know, speaking of Dad, Alex saw him in Heaven a couple days ago. _Cas_ told me all about it."

Sam was thrown off. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah," Dean confirmed. "The old man got a message through somehow. Don't ask me how cuz I haven't even had a chance to ask Alex about it but… Dad said something about Azazel's plans and how it's still dangerous..." he looked at Sam tiredly. "You know anything about that?"

Sam was staring at Dean in complete disbelief. "N-no," he answered, and it must have been the way he said it or the look on his face. Dean was suddenly interested, intent, and looking at him almost suspiciously. "You sure about that?"

Looking at his brother in total fear and panic, because he thought he didn't have to worry or wonder about those dreams he'd had all those years ago anymore—Sam covered his true feelings with anger. "Yes Dean, I'm _sure_. Look, I'm not saying yes to Lucifer and Azazel is dead and _gone_ and I want you to stop acting like you know everything. I'm stronger than you _think_!" He left the panic room in a huff, slamming the door behind him.

"Friggin' drama queen," Dean muttered, then raised his voice a few notches, stood up. "You can't keep me in here forever!"

In response to his shout, Dean heard the door lock and he clenched his fists in frustration. He could hear Sam and Alex talking in indistinct voices outside of the room and he growled in exasperation.

So much for talking it out. So much for them understanding or listening to him. He was gonna have to do this the hard way. He remembered again what Cas had said to him all those months ago about the apocalypse. Dean had been a mess from Alastair's handiwork—hooked up to a million IVs and feeling like death warmed over. Cas had shown up in his hospital room. Dean remembered asking him _"Is it true? Did I break the first seal? Did I start all this?" _And Cas had looked at him point-blank, told him _"Yes. The righteous man who begins it is the one who must finish it."_

And at that time… similar to now… Dean had felt unable. _"Well then, you guys are screwed," _he had replied. _"I can't do it, Cas. It's too big. Alastair was right. I'm not all here. I'm not—I'm not strong enough. Well, I guess I'm not the man either of our dads wanted me to be. Find someone else. It's not me."_

Did he feel strong enough now? _No._ Did he feel capable of this? _No._ He felt like he was taking the coward's way out even though he logically knew that this would save a lot of lives.

The righteous man. Well,_ he _might have believed it was a load of bullshit, at least in the beginning, but apparently Heaven didn't. He was the righteous man. Somewhere along the line fate had picked him as the one who would start the apocalypse and end it, too. That was the single shred of hope that he held onto now, that he could, in fact, end this, defeat Satan, and allow planet earth limp along a little longer. Problem was, he was locked in Bobby's basement, where he couldn't get to the angels. It was looking like he had to take matters into his own hands. He had enough motivation to last a lifetime, and was ready.

He remembered coming face to face with Lucifer in Sam's body when Zachariah had sent him to the future. Satan's words had always haunted Dean, but today, he almost wanted to laugh in the devil's face. _"You won't say yes to Michael," _Lucifer had taunted._ "You won't kill Sam, you won't be able to save Alex from her own foolish choices… whatever you do, you will always end up here. Sam will die, Alex will die. Nothing you can do will change that. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up—here. I win."_

Not today, motherfucker. You don't win today. Not anymore. He wasn't altering details, he was changing the entire damn storyline. Dean listened closely—he didn't hear his siblings talking anymore—good, they'd gone. With any luck, Cas would come stand around uselessly outside again and Dean would be able to lure him in and escape.

Dean took out the switchblade he kept at his ankle, snapped the blade up. It glinted in the incandescent light. "Here goes everything," Dean muttered, and drew the sharp metal across his skin, hissed against the pain, watched bright red blood come forth.

He was very aware that he'd seen his brother and sister for what was probably the last time.

* * *

Upstairs, Castiel watched Adam quietly in the darkened study. The lights were off, the kid was sleeping. Bobby, in turn, was watching Cas and realizing while Sam and Alex were downstairs, he had a chance to feel the angel out a little bit. He wheeled over, cleared his throat, not sure how exactly to broach the subject. "Listen kid, uh… I gotta talk to you about somethin', man to man." He paused, realized his mistake. "Uh… man to angel."

Castiel turned to him, gave him his full attention, his eyes narrowing into a squint. "Of course," he said, and waited.

Bobby looked at the guy carefully, trying to be firm and clear, but also polite. "Now you may think it ain't none of my business, but I've known Alex since she was knee high to a grasshopper and—I love the kid. Like she was my own." Bobby braced himself, put it in short, clear terms. "Don't let me catch you treating her wrong, hear me?"

Cas's head canted just slightly to the side, his frown remained, Bobby continued before he had a chance to reply. "She deserves a guy who's gonna be around for the long haul," Bobby told him, and fixed him with a meaningful look. "Is that you, son?"

"The long haul?" Cas questioned, apparently not understanding the question.

"The rest of her life," Bobby replied, and saw understanding wash over the angel's features. "Someone who ain't gonna run off and abandon her like every other damn man in her life ever has. That girl deserves the best. And then some."

Cas opened his mouth to reply, but the sound of the downstairs door opening interrupted the conversation. Sam came out and around the corner, looking haggard.

Distracted from Cas, Bobby looked at Sam carefully, hopefully. "How's he doing?"

Sam said nothing, shook his head and shrugged, defeated. Bobby nodded, knowing he shouldn't have hoped for Dean to get his head of his ass. "How _you_ doing?" he asked Sam, who just looked down.

Cas was frowning again, looking at Sam with a hard, worried expression. "Where's Alex?"

"Downstairs, said she was gonna try and talk to Dean one more time."

"By_ herself_?" Cas asked, straightening in alarm.

Sam put a hand out, trying to ease Cas's worry. "Cas, it's fine, you have nothing to worry abou—" Castiel brushed past him and went downstairs.

Sam groaned in frustration, ran a hand through his hair.

* * *

Castiel could have transported himself angelically down to the basement, but he didn't even think about it until he was halfway down the stairs. The second his feet hit the ground floor, he forgot about that realization completely. He heard a crash, and he was suddenly afraid that he was too late. He restrained himself purposefully, realizing it might not be what he thought, that in the past, his overreactions had frightened Alex and been, in slang terms, over the line. Still, he rushed across the space between himself and the panic room door, he slammed the viewport latch back to see into the room. "Alex! Dean?" his eyes swept over the room, he saw no one—and then he stood taller, looked down—saw a smashed lamp and Alex laying in the middle of the room, and she_ wasn't moving_, she looked like she could have been _dead_, and there was a streak of blood running down her cheek. His entire system seemed to go into horrified, panicked overdrive. Without hesitation, without even thinking, Castiel ripped the panic room door off of its hinges and he surged into the room, rushing over to her and dropping to his knees beside her, trying to see if—

"Cas."

He whirled, saw Dean, who looked sick and resolved—and in the space of a millisecond saw the angel sigil drawn in blood—he shot to his feet, trying to stop Dean—but it was too late. The other man slammed his hand down over the symbol and a feeling like searing hot acid enveloped Castiel who screamed as he was painfully blasted far, far away.

Dean squinted against the bright light, a hand over his eyes. Cas was gone, and Dean was out of breath. He stared down at the crumpled form that was Alex, in the middle of the panic room. Beside her, the broken lamp he'd hit her with. _This wasn't how this was supposed to have happened!_

He stood there and he almost felt as if he could be physically sick as he stared down at her, in a panic, realizing the irony of what he'd done—hurt her again right after giving Sam a grand speech about saving her. But in the end, this was about saving her, wasn't it? He cursed her fighting spirit and the fact that she'd made him do that—if she hadn't walked in and seen the angel sigil, if she hadn't been about to run and give him away—Dean's backed up a couple steps, his chest was consumed in pain and he had to leave, get away, _now_. He was in too deep now. There was no going back from this.

* * *

Sam came into the study carrying his groaning sister, who looked like she'd been hit in the head—"put me down," she was mumbling, and Sam obliged even as Bobby was wheeling over, panicking, shocked. "What _happened_?" he demanded, then realized someone was missing. "Where's Cas?"

"Blown to _Oz_," Sam hissed, trying to help his sister stand, who was batting him away, getting her bearings. "Dean did this to you?" Bobby asked, incredulous.

"Yeah," Alex muttered angrily, holding a hand to the side of her head. She had a bleeding cut beside her ear, at the top of her cheekbone. "I went in, saw him drawing that freaking angel sigil, he knew I was gonna yell—he put his hand over my mouth, we fought, he smashed a lamp over my head… good times."

Sam's anger was almost palatable at this point. "I am gonna _kill_…" he stopped himself mid sentence, refocused on Alex. "You okay though?" he asked her intensely, and again, she made a face like she was annoyed.

"I'm fine, stop _asking_," she said, avoiding her brother's concerned, riled up gaze. Bobby realized she was embarrassed. Sam was floundering, obviously pulled in a hundred directions, upset and overwhelmed. "Look, I'll go find Dean," Sam said. "He couldn't have gone too far. Just watch Adam."

Bobby looked at the kid like he must be crazy. "_How_? You may have noticed, he's got a slight _height_ advantage."

"Then cuff him to your chair," Sam said, exasperated.

"Just _go_ Sam, we've got it," Alex said tersely, then prompted him with a loud "_hurry_!"

Wordlessly, Sam left, and Alex touched a hand to her bloody cheek, hardly able to believe what had happened. Some metal part of the lamp had cut her and it stung like a bitch. She couldn't tell how messy or how bad the cut was, either. "I'm gonna go clean up real quick," Alex muttered, and made for the bathroom, angry as hell. She knew her brother was a desperate man—he'd proven it when she'd walked into the panic room and seen the sigil he was drawing in blood on the metal locker. She'd taken one look at it and turned to escape, to shout for someone, warn Cas—but Dean had grabbed her, clapped his hand over her mouth he'd begged her not to make a sound, to please understand, he _had to do this_. She wasn't even sure how she'd broken his grip but she had and slugged him in the face and when she'd made a run for the door, he'd grabbed a lamp and blindly swung at her. It had worked. It had silenced her. She looked at the cut on her cheek. It wasn't that bad, just bloody. She wiped it off a little bit, rolled her eyes at her reflection, stalked out of the bathroom.

She was shaking from anger at Dean and what he'd done. The worst part of it was blasting Cas to kingdom come. _How dare he_?

Alex got to the bottom of the stairs, walked around the corner and saw Adam coming out of the study, looking distinctly shady and sneaky. _Oh, you do _not_ wanna piss me off any more than I am already, kid. _"Where you going?" Alex asked, startling him. He stopped, a couple feet out of the study and into the kitchen. She approached him boldly, staring at him hard.

"What happened to your face?" he asked, seeing her cut.

"Don't worry about it," Alex retorted. "I asked you a question. _Where are you going_?"

He set his jaw. "I'm leaving," he said, and stepped to the side, trying to get past her, but she mirrored his movement, stepped with him, blocking his way. His eyes stayed on hers and he clenched his jaw in impatience. "Get out of my way."

"Not happening," Alex told him threateningly, and he paused, then tried stepping the other way, she went with him again, gave him a severe warning look, pointed a finger into his chest and pushed him back. He looked down at her hand contemptuously, took a step back, looked her up and down.

He seemed unsure of himself, but was trying to act like he was some badass. "Listen, I don't wanna have to move you, but I will if I have to."

"Go ahead and try_,_ _cupcake_," she told him, short on patience and almost itching for a fight at this point. She looked him up and down and made sure he knew she was _not _impressed or scared by him in the least.

Anger flickered across Adam's features and he stepped closer to her, probably trying to test her and stare down at her, see if she would really stand up to him. And Alex, who had been fighting for years and years knew enough to take the offensive, to use the element of surprise—cuz he was bigger than her and strong, but it didn't matter how big your opponent was. If you knew how to fight dirty and use surprise to your advantage, keep your feet on the ground… you could take down almost anymore. As Adam stepped forward to stare down at her, she reeled back and she socked him squarely in the face. He stumbled back a couple steps, making a surprised noise of pain even as she shoved him with all her strength back into the study—he fell back onto his elbows and stared up at her in shock, blood running out of his nose.

And that's when Alex saw Bobby, unconscious and slumped in his wheelchair, shotgun across his lap, a smashed lamp on the ground beside him. _Are you friggin' kidding me? _Alex's mouth dropped open and her first instinct was to run to her uncle and make sure he was okay—she looked at Adam vengefully, and she didn't just see Adam, she saw Dean too. _How fucking dare that little twerp?!_ He was on his feet now, looking at her, breathing a little heavier than before, wiping blood from below his nose with the back of his hand.

"You got lucky," he told her, drawing himself up to his full height, trying to intimidate her, trying to act like he'd only gone down because he hadn't been expecting her assault. "Care to test that theory?" she asked dangerously, and she could see from the look on his face that he was pretty much regretting everything about how he'd gotten himself into this moment. She saw him eyeing the shotgun—and they both dove for it at the same second, but Adam got there first, yanking the gun up and pointing it at Alex, who stood there and stared at him, raising her chin slightly, gauging his distance from her, the way he held the guy. This was too easy. "You're not gonna shoot me," she told him calmly, almost bored, waited for him to reply.

"What makes you so sure about th—" he began to ask, but Alex lunged forward, grabbed the barrel of the gun with one hand and the hilt of the other fast, cracking the wooden butt of the gun across his face with violent force, stunning him so much that he fell backwards.

"Because you're on the ground and don't have a _gun_, idiot," she told him, standing over him with the weapon she'd procured, one foot on his chest, holding him down on the ground as she trained the gun at his head. "First rule of hunting... don't lose your weapon," she told him in a voice dripping with sarcasm. What a clueless jackass. He was holding his jaw in offended shock, like he couldn't believe what had happened, or that she would do that. He made to move, but she cocked the gun, shook her head, pushed him down further with her foot. "Wouldn't be _wise_ for you to move right now," she told him, then gave him a humorless little smile.

"When Sam gets back with Dean, you two lamp-smashing psychopaths are going into the panic room _forever_, you hear me?" she demanded angrily.

And that's the exact moment when the house began to tremble and a brilliant white light shone all around them.

* * *

The celestial whispers were the first thing Castiel heard as he came to himself after being blasted away into the corners of the four winds. For a glancing moment, he couldn't understand the words being said—his thoughts were reassembling themselves, he was quickly remembering how he'd found Alex laying on the floor, struck down by Dean's hand—and that mental image made the very blood in the veins of Castiel's body boil in anger. Dean had done those things to _escape_, to go to the angels, to utterly betray them all. And Castiel tore through space, rocketing back to the panic room, expecting to find her still there, even though some time had passed—but there was nothing but the sickening sight of several small blood droplets on the floor where she'd been. Cas he swept through matter into the upstairs area, and found the study was wrecked by signs of a struggle—an unconscious Bobby Singer sat in his wheelchair, head lolling forward—and Cas went to the man, touched his pulse, looking around in growing desperation—he felt his heart hammering painfully, his throat closing up, things he couldn't control or stop. He stood back from Bobby, took two steps backwards. He called out for Alex, turning in a circle, seeing nothing and no one,_ feeling _an absence of human presences nearby. Where was she? _Where was sh_e_?!_ And then he stopped moving as the words the angels were whispering suddenly became clear, unmuffled, loud and unavoidable.

_We have Alex Winchester and Adam Milligan._

Utter horror overcame Castiel and panic soon followed as his mind tripped over itself, unable to form clear thought. _No_—why—_how_? What did the angels want with her? What were they going to _do _with her? His immediate reaction was that _he had to rescue her_, and his second thought made him feel physically ill: she could be anywhere or earth, _anywhere_, and he had no idea _where_—

And then he heard a man praying in place of Dean Winchester—and Castiel was almost unable to see, such were the levels of his wrath. So, Dean wanted to call down the angels? He would _have_ what he wanted. Castiel drew his hands into fists and disappeared, hurtling through the fabric of space at blistering speeds toward Dean, who was completely unprepared for _which_ angel would come and answer his prayer.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ ERMERGERD WHAT IS HAPPENS TO ALURX AND ADURMMMM!? And more importantly, will Dean survive the wrath of Cas?!_

_I am particularly proud of the Dean/Sam scene in the panic room UGHHH I just… I hope you liked it too._

_You know, I am just so in love with writing this story right now that it's not even funny. I'm so excited for the season five finale, which we are quickly closing in on… gaaaah. Leave a review and lemme know what you thought and maybe what you think is happening and BYE GOODNIGHT YOU GUYS ROCK!_

_PS if you're wondering, yes, we will see more of Cas and Alex's afternoon in the attic together in flashbacks in upcoming chapters._


	37. Sacrifice

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 37 / Sacrifice

"_Your name is pounding through my veins, can't you hear how it is sung?" _  
- Dashboard Confessional

* * *

"The end is nigh!" The street preacher called loudly. He stood in front of a liquor store, holding his Bible up above his head. Dean hurried toward him—if he hesitated at all, he might not follow through with this. The closer her got to actually doing it, the less he thought he could follow through. "The apocalypse is upon us!" The preacher shouted. "The angels talk to me, and they asked me to talk to you! The apocalypse—"

"Hey!" Dean interrupted a little breathlessly. The preacher looked at him in surprise as he came to a stop in front of him. "I'm Dean Winchester. Do you know who I am?"

There was shock and recognition the second he asked that. The preacher's eyes widened. "Dear _God!_"

"I'll... take that as a yes," Dean muttered, a little weirded out. "Listen, I uh, need you to pray to your angel buddies and let them know that I'm here."

Without any further encouragement, the preacher fell to his knees in prayer, sandwiching his Bible between his hands. Dean's pulse jumped up, he tried not to panic. He was _really_ gonna do this, wasn't he? He didn't have time to think about it anymore. The preacher began to pray in a loud, impassioned voice as Dean's stomach began to churn. "Our father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name—"

"You pray too loud," came a familiar, gravelly voice, and Dean jumped, startled at the sudden appearance of Castiel who touched the preacher and rendered him unconscious. The preacher hadn't even finished falling to the ground before Dean was realizing _oh shit not good—_but before he could react any further, he was grabbed hard and dragged into the nearby alley. For the second time that day, Cas slammed Dean up against a wall, this time brick, and pain exploded across his already-bruised back and shoulders.

"What are you,_ crazy_?!" Dean protested, even as Cas flung him to the opposite side of the alley, hard. He stumbled from the force of the push, disoriented, and Cas grabbed him tightly, shoved him flat against the wall, held him there.

"How _could_ you?!" Castiel shouted, and then reeled back and hit Dean in the face, twice, each impact of the angel's fist making pain explode in Dean's cheek and then jaw. Cas grabbed Dean tightly by the collar, breathed down his neck practically, growling through bared teeth. "The angels _took_ her because of you!"

"W-what?" Dean asked, confused, his mind suddenly ringing in a whole new kind of alarm. But Castiel didn't explain, he flung Dean to the other side of the alley, seeming to be blinded by rage. He hit Dean in the stomach, once, twice—and it was like being struck by a mallet. "Cas! Please!" Dean begged, blood seeping out of his mouth.

"_No_!" Cas snarled, and threw him to the other side of the alley, grabbed him tightly, his face inches from Dean's. "You don't_ deserve _mercy," he spat. "Not after what you've _done_, what you were _about _to do." He shook Dean angrily. "I gave _everything_ for you!" Cas raged. "And you give me _this_?! You betray us _all_!?" He stared at Dean venomously, and his low voice trembled. "If she dies because of what you've done…" he trailed off, too angry to finish his sentence.

He dragged Dean away from the wall, held him with one hand, drew back and hit him hard in the face, sending him stumbling, falling backward. Relentless, Cas steadily bore down on the stumbling man and then kicked him hard. Dean flew back, hit the chain link fence several feet up from the ground, and slammed back down onto the ground.

On the ground, Dean heard footsteps and he cringed, anticipating that Cas's strong hands would grab onto him again, drag him up, and beat him some more. The footsteps stopped. Nothing happened. Struggling, he looked up, saw Cas looking down at him with cold fury written all over his features. "Tell me why I shouldn't lay you to waste right here and now," the angel hissed.

Dean panted, every inch of his body reverberating with so much pain. "I-I got nothing," he replied weakly, honestly. Coughing and gagging on his own blood, he could barely hold himself up.

Cas gazed down on him with revulsion and disgust written across his features. His fists were clenched tightly, he looked like he were holding himself back. Dean realized Cas really _was_ going to kill him—no ifs ands or buts. And maybe, he thought, maybe he deserved it. Maybe this was the way it was supposed to end. He was just so done with everything, so filled with guilt over his failures, and he hurt everywhere. He couldn't fight anymore and he didn't want to. "Do it," he told Cas faintly, begging him almost. And when the angel didn't move, Dean's voice raised several octaves. "Just _do it_!" he shouted. His vision swam, he blinked rapidly, and Castiel looked at him long and hard… then unclenched his fist, relented.

"No," the angel said, as if he were tired, weary, defeated.

_What? _Baffled, Dean opened his mouth to protest, to ask why. But Cas reached out with surprising gentleness, touched the other man's shoulder… and the world went pitch black.

* * *

"_Adam_ did this to you?" Sam demanded, trying to examine the bruising cut on Bobby's temple, but the older man batted him away, annoyed.

"Like I told you, one second he was asleep, the next he's in my face with a lamp and it's lights out." Bobby paused grimly. "No pun intended."

"So what, Alex went after him or what?" Sam demanded impatiently, his voice filled with rising panic.

"I don't _know_, Sam—" Bobby tried to explain.

Sam lost his temper. "Bobby what the _hell_! They could be _anywhere_!"

"Watch your tone, boy!" Bobby said, trying to stay calm but just barely succeeding. "We'll _find_ them."

The room was suddenly swept by a gust of wind that scattered papers wildly. "No we won't." Cas stood there supporting an unconscious, bloody Dean. The angel's face was held rigidly in a harsh expression, he looked almost ill. "The angels took them."

"_Angels_?" Sam repeated in horror, then thoroughly looked at his bloody, beaten brother. "And what the hell happened to _him_?"

Cas returned Sam's alarmed, questioning look with a dark glance. "_Me_." He half-shoved, half-handed Dean at Sam, who caught him fumblingly.

"What do you mean, the _angels_ took them?" Bobby asked, beside himself, confused. Castiel was looking at one of the study chairs oddly as Bobby continued. "They were _hidden_!"

"Adam... must have tipped them." Cas said, distracted and gruff. He walked over to the chair, picked up the jacket that was laid there—it was Alex's. His expression was unreadable, he just looked down at the jacket in his hand

"_How_?" Bobby demanded, trying to understand.

"I don't know," Cas said, and his grip tightened measurably on Alex's discarded jacket, his eyebrows stitched together. "I don't _know_," he repeated, louder, and his voice was filled with levels of alarm and distress that Bobby wasn't used to hearing. His jaw was rigid, he finally looked at Bobby. "Maybe in a dream." His eyes swept back and forth over the floor near his feet in deep thought, he looked at the jacket again, hesitated, and then put it back, became determined, drew his angel blade. Sam's face went cold when he saw the blade gleam. Cas glanced at Bobby and Sam in turn, and his face was full of an ominous quality. "All I know is that I have to find them, _now_."

"Where do you think the angels—" Sam started, but Cas disappeared with another mighty gust of wind. "Cas!" Sam shouted in protest, but the angel was gone.

Not knowing what else to do, Sam dumped Dean down onto the cot, shook him by the shoulders and then smacked him in the face, even though his cheek was bleeding and his lip was split.

"_Wake up_," Sam growled, slapped Dean again, who suddenly sputtered to life and protested: "Ow, _ow_!"

"Dean you frigging _moron_!" Sam shouted, pushing Dean down by the shoulders.

"Wha—" Dean seemed dazed, unsure of where he was for a second.

"Hey take it easy—" Bobby said.

"The _angels_ have Alex and Adam!" Sam thundered, standing up, removing himself from proximity to Dean before he punched his brother in the face. The confusion in Dean's eyes cleared. His expression became alarmed, he sat up, groaning pathetically in pain, looking at Bobby and then Sam, not understanding.

"T-the angels? _How_?" Dean asked, panting and holding a hand against his side.

"I don't know _how_," Sam retorted, "all I know is that they _do_."

"Shit," Dean swore softly, and put his head in his hand, at a complete loss. "_Shit_! This is my fault."

"You're damn right it is, Dean!" Sam raged at full volume. "I could break your nose right now!"

Dean attempted to make a face, but he ended up looking faintly ashamed. "Yeah well Cas might have already done that for you," he looked around, face twisted in pain. "Where is he, anyway?"

"He went to go_ find_ them."

"Alone?" Dean asked, eyes widening.

Sam scoffed contemptuously. "What, _you_ wanna head up the rescue effort?"

"It's kinda my fault they got taken, Sam!" Dean exclaimed, to which his brother rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, exactly," Sam muttered, then seemed to get a second wind of anger. "I mean what the_ hell_ Dean?! I go downstairs and find Cas blasted away and Alex unconscious and bleeding on the _floor_?! How could you do that? I should cuff you to the damn _house_ at this point! Have you lost your _mind_?"

"I don't…" Dean almost sounded near tears, which was rich. "...I don't know."

Sam took in an angry breath, his shoulders were tense and his jaw was clenched, he looked like he might, quite literally, explode. Bobby, who had wheeled over to his refrigerator, was coming back, a bag of frozen peas sitting in his lap. "Calm down Sam, ain't no use to lose your head right now," he chided in that quiet but firm way he had. Sam visibly struggled to control his temper.

Bobby handed over the frozen vegetable bag to Dean, who accepted it shamefacedly, but put it against his swelling cheek anyway. His shoulders hung in defeat. "We gotta get them outta there," he said quietly.

"Wherever _there_ is," Sam retorted, crossing his arms. The three men exchanged glances. All they could do was wait for Cas to come back.

* * *

They weren't at Bobby's anymore, she knew that much, but it was so _bright _and she couldn't see anything—Alex blinked a couple times, trying to get her eyes to work as she also attempted to remain standing on two feet. There was an odd feeling like she'd lapsed in time, like she'd been stuck somewhere. Like it was later than she remembered it being. It was a strange, bad feeling. Last thing she remembered, she had been standing in the study, holding Adam down on the ground… and then the whole place had been enveloped by a blinding white light.

She heard someone shifting near her, and her eyes began to adjust. Adam was laying near her feet, groaning. "Where _are_ we?" he asked, squinting as he rolled himself onto his side, seeming as disoriented as she was.

Alex looked around again—serene paintings framed by fancy gilded frames lined the walls, fancy little statuettes and vases dotted the surfaces of the ornate side tables pushed against each opposite wall, a plush couch sat across from a large dining table… and Alex felt the blood drain out of her face when she realized where they were. The beautiful room—_the_ beautiful room—the same one that she and Dean had been trapped in when Sam had been breaking the final seal to release Lucifer. Panic swelled in her chest._ No no no. What's happening? Why are we here? _Beside her, Adam was getting up woozily.

"_Damn_," he commented, holding his jaw gingerly, looking around at where they were. "Did you have to hit me that hard?" he complained.

"Shut _up_," Alex said, whispering—which was probably stupid, angels had better senses than humans, but still. "We have bigger problems right now." She looked around frantically, but there was no door, like before. But on the plus side, no angels either. Yet.

Adam saw the table in the middle of the room, which had beers stuck in a bowl of ice and beside it, a pile of hamburgers that it would take ten men to eat. Adam forgot his jaw and smirked, sauntered over to the table, admiring the spread. "Maybe _you_ have bigger problems, but uh, I think I'm home free now."

"No, you're _not_," Alex insisted, trying one last time to get through as her idiot half-brother pulled out a chair and sat down. "_Adam_. Listen to me. Whatever they've told you, whatever they've said—they're _lying_. We gotta get out of here, _now._"

He didn't even look at her, just grabbed a burger and smiled down at it. "Yeah, sure. I think I'll have a burger…" he looked at her and smirked again, "care to join me?"

"_No_." Alex looked at the burger mistrustfully, then at Adam in genuine concern. "I wouldn't eat anything if I were you."

He ignored her attempts to help him. "Suit yourself, Twiggy."

So much for trying to help. He began to eat the burger in huge bites. He chewed loudly and Alex wanted to strangle him. Instead, she grabbed a fancy metal candelabra from off of one of the fancy wooden hutches that lined the room, held it like a bat, and swung it full-force into one of the walls, sending drywall flying in powder and chunks alike. She hacked again and again, desperately, stood back breathlessly… and the wall was just like new the second she stopped, all the damage she'd done gone. "You _kidding_ me?" she protested, glaring at the wall.

Adam paused mid-chew. "What are you _doing_?" he asked her, and she spun around, giving him the most _you-suck_ face she could muster. "_Remodeling,_" she snapped.

"Now Alex—you should know that doesn't work by now," came a new voice, and Alex jumped, startled, turning to see…

"Zachariah," she said flatly. _Great. Just friggin' great._

Her favorite angel douchewad stood there smiling pleasantly. "Hi! How ya been doing?" he asked, chipper.

Alex glared at him and dropped the candelabra, sullen, resigned. Zach grinned at her, then Adam. The angel seemed pleased. _Beyond_ pleased. "So _good_ to see you again! I was afraid we left things on a bad note last time." If looks could kill, Zachariah would be dead under Alex's glare. He unclasped his hands from behind his back and chuckled, shaking his finger at Alex in good humor. "_Imagine_ my surprise when I find out Adam here gets picked up by your beau Castiel and that he takes the kid straight to _you_! I couldn't have planned it better. Well. Maybe if Sam had been there too. That would have been A _plus_ plus!"

"What do you mean?" Adam asked, frowning slightly, puzzled by the angel's excited ramblings.

Zachariah suddenly looked sideways, narrowed his eyes, as if he were listening to something. His expression became odd. "Uh… sorry… can you excuse me for a minute? Seems like we've gotten some unexpected company outside."

He disappeared into thin air.

"What does he mean?" Adam asked.

Short on patience, Alex glared at him sideways, her arms crossed tightly. "What, about you and me or about unexpected company?" she asked. And then, at that moment, she realized what Zach had meant about both. Her stomach suddenly turned on its side and she felt her face fall, her arms uncross slowly. "This is a trap, Adam," she said, her voice made soft in shock. "This is a trap for Dean."

Adam shook his head, made a face. "No… no way. The angels said—"

She lost it. "Who _cares_ what they said!" She shouted, barreling over to him. "Listen to _me_!" She grabbed him by two fistfuls of his shirt and shook him, yelling. "I am _telling_ you the _truth_! These assholes are _using_ us!" He stared at her without moving, looking at her sort of fearfully, and Alex shoved him back into the chair.

He straightened himself guardedly, looked at her with growing doubt. "Y-you don't know that," he said lamely.

Alex could have punched a wall, she could have kicked his teeth in, she was so angry at how helpless and stuck they were, how _stupid_ he was. She said nothing, just began to pace. This _was_ a trap, it had to be. Of _course_ Adam wasn't Michael's vessel, those frigging angels had lied to him and were going to use him—crap, and _her_—as bait to get Dean here to say yes. Who was out there? What did Zachariah mean? Was Dean out there right now saying yes to save her and Adam? Completely out of coherent thoughts, Alex grabbed a vase and threw it at the wall with an angry shriek. The glass shattered all over the floor.

"Good job," Adam muttered, staring at her sidelong, sullen. He didn't seem to have an appetite anymore.

"Shut up," Alex snapped at him, trying to think, trying to _think_.

* * *

In the dark warehouse, Castiel stood in a wide stance, facing the angel who stood in front of the entrance to the beautiful room. "Hello, Castiel," said the other angel, his blade at his side, gleaming in the low light. He had dark hair, fair skin, almond eyes. Cas knew him.

"Eliphaz," Castiel acknowledged lowly. His blade was at his side, too.

"This seems like a bold move," Eliphaz said, gazing at Cas with cold calculation. "Coming here alone. Where is Dean Winchester?"

Castiel glared at him unflinchingly. "Move aside."

The other angel only blinked. "I'm sorry. Only Dean Winchester is to enter this room. No one else."

Castiel took a step closer. "I won't ask again."

"Neither will I," Eliphaz warned, his gaze clouding. "Leave. Now."

In answer, Castiel advanced on him, and Eliphaz suddenly disappeared. _Where did he_—Cas whirled a hundred and eighty degrees, barely stopping Eliphaz's blade with his. The clang of the blades clashing echoed loudly in the dank warehouse, and the two warriors struggled for a moment, then broke apart, standing away and circling each other.

"Look at you, Castiel," Eliphaz said quietly. "I didn't believe the rumors until now." His dark eyes appraised Cas carefully. "You've changed." He wrinkled his nose just slightly, looked at Cas with repulsion. "You reek of humanity."

They continued to circle each other slowly, watchful. "Better that than the stench of corruption," Cas replied, and Eliphaz's face twisted into a snarl, he lunged forward and slashed at Castiel's torso—Cas jumped back, narrowly avoiding being harmed, he recovered and slashed his blade, too, sending Eliphaz back into a bend to avoid getting cut across the neck. Using the moment to his advantage, Cas arced his blade downward at Eliphaz's chest, but the other angel stopped Cas's blade a fraction of an inch away from his chest by grabbing hold of Castiel's wrist with his free hand. Eliphaz's blade streaked down through the air at Cas at the same time that he stopped Cas's attack. Cas barely caught him by the wrist... not before the blade had sunk into Cas's shoulder a few inches.

There was a cry of pain and Castiel realized it was him—Eliphaz was slowly grinding the blade deeper into Cas's shoulder. And the two angels wrestled, strength against strength, Cas just barely holding the other angel back. Eliphaz was right, he had changed… he was weaker, he was slower. But he also had something driving his actions that no other angel in Heaven or Earth had. Cas thought of Alex in the beautiful room, needing him, thought of how she'd been _safe _with him only a few hours ago, thought of how he'd held her close and traced the constellations of freckles on her shoulders with his fingertips as she slept nestled against him. He thought of her alone and at the mercy of these angels who meant her harm, who would hurt her without hesitation to get to Dean. And overcome with helpless rage, Castiel seemed to grow stronger—he pushed Eliphaz's wrist away from himself slowly, and with it came the blade. The tip of it was bright red with Cas's blood.

Blue light shone out of the wound in his shoulder—but despite that, Cas felt his strength soaring, felt his blood singing with a new resolve. He raised his foot and kicked Eliphaz hard in the stomach, and the other angel flew backward, halfway across the warehouse. Even as he hit the ground, he was getting back onto his feet, holding his blade in front of him at a ready stance… but as he had righted himself, Cas seized the small window of opportunity, drew his blade back and sent it flying straight at the other angel. The sword plunged into Eliphaz's chest. Shocked, Eliphaz looked down at himself, then up—Castiel was suddenly right there in front of him. Eliphaz's hair blew back with the speed at which Cas had moved across the distance between them. Castiel grabbed the hilt of his blade. "You should have moved aside when I told you to," he said lowly, and drove the blade all the way in—blue light exploded from Eliphaz's eyes and mouth, he screamed, and Castiel yanked out his blade. Eliphaz fell down dead, and the outline of spidery black angel wings spread out beneath him on the dirty concrete floor. Black feathers fluttered through the air.

Castiel looked down on the angel he used to call brother, realized how far his feet had led him from the path he used to follow. Cas turned when he heard the sound of slow, steady clapping. Zachariah stood there, and behind him were six more angels. "Nice, I give it a nine out of ten, Cas!" he said, and Castiel narrowed his eyes. "So! What brings you by?" Zachariah asked, acting pleasant, putting his hands on his hips.

Castiel's gaze swept over the angels behind Zachariah. He recognized them all. "You know why I'm here," Castiel replied darkly, refocusing on Zachariah. "Stand aside."

"_Mmm_…" Zachariah feigned thoughtfulness, touched his chin in contemplation. "No." He looked at Cas's shoulder pointedly. "You don't look like you're gonna be up to much more roughhousing, to be honest with you." He chuckled, then dropped the act completely. "But enough small talk. Where's Dean?"

Cas lowered his chin, tightened his grip on his blade, said nothing, looked over the angels flanking Zachariah. On his left, Daniel, on his right, Hezion. They were both skilled warriors, especially Hezion, and Castiel knew he couldn't go up against them and win. Zachariah was examining him closely. "You know, Eliphaz was right. You _have_ changed. I guess you would, what with the kind of time you spend with the locals." He smirked knowingly at Cas.

Castiel narrowed his eyes. "_Enough_, Zachariah. Release the girl and the boy to me. _Now_."

"Yeah, sure! Of course!" Zachariah said with what seemed to be a great amount of concern, and turned to the tall, dark-haired male angel at his side. "Hezion... bring the female out here to me."

Hezion's dark gaze met Cas's for a glancing moment, he disappeared and reappeared two seconds later, holding a very confused looking Alex by the arm. On the other side of her, Daniel took hold of her other arm. The second Alex caught sight of Cas, her expression fell, she became frightened. "_Cas_!" she exclaimed, going still, looking at him in stark horror.

Cas's front of calm indifference was gone. "Are you all right?" he asked, unable to hide his anxiety. "Have they harmed you in any way?"

Zachariah chuckled, answered for her, took a few steps Cas's way, his hands clasped behind his back. "Oh, we haven't, but we _will_."

"It will be the_ last_ thing you do," Cas threatened, to which Zachariah laughed good-naturedly and turned back around, looked at Alex as if she were his prized pet. She looked back at him in revulsion.

"You _know_, Alex," Zachariah said thoughtfully, casually sauntering over to her, "you doesn't _look _much like your mother… quite frankly I don't know _what_ trench coat over there sees in you but... maybe you're the same sorta gal…" he brushed Alex's hair back from the front of her shoulder, revealing the skin of her neck, he ran his fingers along the curve of her neck slowly, "...deep down." Alex's face was twisted up in disgust.

Castiel bristled immediately and stepped forward. Behind Zachariah, all of the angels raised their blades just slightly, in warning. Cas stopped short, torn and unable to move closer, unable to move away. Zachariah chuckled, stroking Alex's arm now, his touch distinctly sensual. He looked back at Cas in amusement as Alex tried to struggle away from Zachariah's hand in vain. Hezion and Daniel held her tighter in place. Daniel's expression was stoic, but Hezion looked at Zachariah sidelong, mildly troubled.

Cas's shoulders heaved up and down, he could barely control himself. "Geez, take a chill pill there, fella!" Zachariah mocked, making a face and removing his hand from Alex. "I'm just messing with you. She's not even my type!"

"Taking her will the the worst choice you ever made, Zachariah," Castiel told the other angel in no uncertain terms.

Zachariah looked amused, and was now reaching into his jacket. Out came his shining blade, and Castiel froze, stopped breathing for a minute. What was he going to do with that? "You aren't exactly in a position to be making _threats_, Castiel," Zachariah said, examining his blade with what appeared to be great interest. "Tell you what. You leave, bring back the oldest Winchester… the girl lives. You keep making trouble here…" Zachariah swept the blade upward, pressed the length of it against the side of Alex's neck, "the girl dies."

Castiel desperately looked at the angels who held Alex. He_ knew_ Hezion and Daniel—he knew _all _of these angels—and yet they all looked at him as though he were despicable to them, as if they were above him completely. Zachariah was waiting for Castiel to respond. Cas remained still, unsure what to do, trying to keep his wits about him, trying to maintain an outward mask of scorn and authority despite his inner panic. "You won't kill her, she's too valuable to you," he said, and hoped it was true. His mind was racing, calculating. His shoulder hurt, he was weakened. But he had to rescue her. She was _so _close and yet so far out of reach.

Zachariah grabbed Alex's arm from Daniel and yanked her to the front of himself, held his blade tighter against Alex's neck and as he did, Cas's entire body went tense all over again. "You really wanna test me?" He asked, soft and serious. "Step away, Cas. Bring Dean here, nice and easy, your precious little human pet stays alive."

Cas didn't move at all, he couldn't. He stared at Alex, who was looking back at him with wide eyes, and she shook her head slightly—to which Zachariah suddenly slashed his blade across the side of her neck lightly, enough to draw blood without being fatal. Alex hissed in surprise or pain. Cas stepped forward without even thinking, and Zachariah looked at him with eyebrows raised high, his blade now at Alex's throat. Cas's hand was forced. Cas took several steps back, feeling murderous and sickened all at once. Zachariah shoved Alex back at Hezion, who held her still with both hands.

"Good boy," Zachariah told Cas, even as Alex began to struggle.

"Don't bring Dean here Cas,_ please_, just keep him away!" she begged. Hezion tightened his grip on her, and she made a soft sound of pain. Hezion looked at Cas with an unreadable expression, and Daniel, blade drawn, took a step toward Cas, letting him know it was time to leave.

Breathing hard, Cas looked at Alex, filled with fear. _He had no choice. _Every part of him protested, knowing that he was about to willingly _leave her there_. It was strange, too, a feeling like permanent loss weighed on him. He felt as though he would never see her again. He looked at her and only her, holding her gaze with his. "I'll be back for you," he told her, and she stared at him wordlessly—her eyes begging him not to go—and against every instinct, with a great deal of pain that wasn't physical, Cas tore himself away from that place, left Alex behind.

* * *

Sam stood in the doorframe, glaring at Dean, who sat on the bed, holding the bag of peas against his face pathetically. Bobby had one now too and was holding it against his slightly swollen temple. Suddenly, Cas reappeared in the middle of the study, startling them all. It had been about ten or fifteen minutes since he'd disappeared. And even as Sam stood up straight in surprise, he saw the blood splatter on Cas's shoulder, the glowing blue that emanated from the knife wound. "Cas!" Sam exclaimed, going to him. "What happened to you?"

Cas ignored the question, harrowed. "They're being held and guarded heavily in the beautiful room," he said.

"Wait, _the_ beautiful room?" Dean asked, setting his the bag of peas down.

"Yes, no thanks to you," Cas snapped at him.

Sam was trying to get a better look at the angel's wound. "Was there a fight? Are you hurt?"

"I'll be _fine_," Cas said, glossing over it. He was in rare form, the opposite of calm. "Listen to me, they're being held and guarded heavily, we have to go _now_."

"Whoa, whoa, _whoa_," Dean said, standing up. "Fly in there blind? Cas, we need a plan!"

Cas turned on him, glaring, as if he couldn't believe Dean would hesitate for even a second. "We need to get them _out _of there!"

"Yes, I agree, but let's get a game plan together, okay?" Dean reasoned, then looked at Cas strangely. "You're not thinking straight, man. We go in there without our heads on our shoulders, we end up with an even more messed up situation. Calm down."

"I can't '_calm down'_ Dean! If you hadn't sent me away I could have protected them _both_." Dean withered under Castiel's glare and the truth of his words. "What you've done is unforgivable," Cas said, no longer looking at Dean. Shaking his head in disgusted disappointment, he glanced at Dean briefly. "I can't take you there. You'll only give in to their demands." He expelled a frustrated breath, clenched his fists, clearly holding in great amounts of anger. "This is an impossible situation."

Without warning, the study window shattered, startling everyone but Cas. Bobby looked at Cas's clenched fists and stony expression and he heaved a sigh, pushed his ball cap up an inch. "Cas, it's gonna be okay, you hear me? We'll figure this out." He looked at the shattered window. "But you really need to quit wreckin' my house."

Cas seemed chastened. "I'm sorry, Bobby." He was looking down at the floor somberly. "I saw Zachariah hurt her. He wanted me to see."

"What? Is she hurt bad?" Sam asked, his worry tripling as he uncrossed his arms and stepped away from the doorframe.

Cas shook his head slowly. "No but—"

"Why would he do that?" Dean interrupted, getting more and more anxious.

"In order to manipulate me, the same way he intends to manipulate you."

"The hell you mean?" Dean asked.

Cas looked at Dean starkly. "He took Alex and Adam in order to lure you there. When you arrive to rescue them, he'll use them to force you to say yes to Michael."

"Son of a _bitch_," Dean muttered, then looked at Sam sort of accusingly. "I _knew_ this was gonna happen! I _told_ you! If I hadn't been such a screwhead, if I had just quit being stubborn months ago, this wouldn't have happened!"

"Well it _has_, so now what?" Sam asked contemptuously, then he suddenly laughed humorlessly.

"_What_?" Dean demanded brusquely.

"It's funny Dean," Sam said coldly. "The _angels_ thought you were stronger than this. They thought they had to take Adam and Alex to force you into this... when you were just gonna wimp out and do it anyway."

"Now you listen to me," Dean started angrily.

"We don't have time for your sibling rivalry right now," Castiel interjected gruffly, drawing strange looks from the Winchester brothers. "The situation is this: your half-brother and your sister are both being held by Zachariah and guarded by at least six angels. If you stay away, Zachariah will kill one of your siblings—probably Adam—and then torture the other one until you go there. When you go there, once you say yes, I see no reason for him to keep either of them alive."

The brothers were both somber now. "So what do we do, Cas?" Sam asked faintly. "How do we save them?"

"Why can't you just beam into the USS beautiful room and grab the kids and beam back?" Dean asked.

"I told you," Castiel reiterated. "There are angels guarding the room, and they're all very fast. One of them did this to me—" he indicated his wounded shoulder, "one of the younger, more inexperienced ones. All the others there are much older. Faster. It's… close to impossible."

"Look, I'm only seeing one option here," Dean said. "I gotta go. _Now_. You two come with me, maybe we can get the jump on Zachariah."

"Even if that were a possibility, how much of a fool do you take me for?" Cas questioned him.

Dean was exasperated. "Look, what if I promise you I won't say yes?"

Cas looked at Dean sullenly. "You were insistent on saying yes just minutes ago on the street, or have you forgotten?"

Dean pointed at his bloody face, deadpan. "Does it _look_ like I've forgotten?"

Cas's expression was filled with thinly veiled contempt. "You created this catastrophe, Dean, I don't need you to make it worse."

"Look, I'm good and pissed now," Dean said loudly, growing insistent, walking over to Cas, staring him down. "They took my _family _from me and that was the worst possible move they could have made, okay?" He winced, giving away the fact that he was still in a great deal of pain. He brushed it aside, trying to convince Castiel. "I'm not giving those bastards the satisfaction of my yes now. They screwed up their chance at having this sweet ass the second they touched Adam and Alex."

Cas had grown introspective and sad, tilted his head to just the side, looked at Dean hesitatingly. "You assured me that you wouldn't hurt your sister again and yet you did anyway. Why should I listen to anything you say?"

"Because I'm just as serious about saving her and Adam as you are!" Dean thundered, insulted and convicted at the same time. "If not _more_ so!" He paused, grew bitter, looked at Cas with a cloudy expression. "Besides, Cas, I'm not the only one who's ever broken their word around here." Both of them knew what he was referring to: Cas's romantic involvement with Alex, despite his promises to stay away.

A muscle jumped in Cas's jaw, he looked hard into Dean's eyes. "You aren't in a position to be disrespectful to me."

"Guys, we don't have_ time_ for this!" Sam interjected, drawing both of the men's gazes to him. "We need to figure out a plan and get our asses to the room _now_."

Mildly subdued, the angel and the oldest Winchester were silent for a moment, and Dean looked at Cas quietly for a second. "Why didn't you kill me?" he asked. "Back there in the alley? Why'd you hold back, man?"

Cas's eyes jumped up to Dean's, and he didn't answer for a long moment. He was appraising Dean closely. "Because she would never have forgiven me for it," Cas said, then looked down in thought, reluctant. "And truthfully, Dean... I didn't want to. I couldn't." He looked at Dean sadly, a little confused, like not even he understood his reasonings. "You are my friend. Even after everything you've done."

The study was dead silent. "Seriously?" Dean asked, taken aback.

"Yes." Cas paused, then squinted just a little bit. "Seriously."

Dean seemed to be touched by Cas's words and he just looked at the angel for a second, speechless. And then he nodded, seemed to feel empowered, seemed to brace himself. "All right. Let's go bust these kids outta the angel slammer."

* * *

Zachariah took Alex back into the beautiful room, and Adam stood up when they reappeared and when he saw her bleeding neck.

"What happened?" he asked, seeming surprised and even a little worried. Zachariah ignored his question, came toward the table, leaving Alex to stew angrily in the far corner of the room beside a fancy room divider.

"Sorry about that, sparky," Zachariah said to Adam. "Had some business to take care of. So!" He chuckled, sat on the side of the table casually, looked at the half-eaten burger on the table. "I see you and your brother Dean share the same refined palate."

"Uh..." Adam seemed uncertain how to react, looking at Alex in growing concern, his mood no longer smug and easygoing, instead uncomfortable and unsure. "Is she okay?"

"Don't worry about it," Zachariah said, and indicated Adam's chair. "Have a seat."

"...sure, all right," Adam said, sinking back to the chair slowly, mildly suspicious. He looked at Alex a second longer, clearly trying to piece together what had happened. He tore his gaze away from her, looked at Zachariah. "So, uh… is it time?"

"For what?" Zachariah asked.

Adam looked like he was beginning to fear the worst, that what his sister had said was true. Still, he tried to hide that. "For Michael," he said simply.

"Oh!" Zachariah enthusiastically feigned remembrance. "_Right._ About that… look, this is never easy, but I'm afraid… we've had to terminate your position at this time."

Adam's face went cold with disbelief and betrayal.

"Hey, don't get me wrong. You've been a hell of a sport, really. Good stuff." Zachariah made the a-ok symbol with his hand. "But the thing is, you're not so much the 'chosen one' as you are…" Zachariah smiled pleasantly, "hmm, a clammy scrap of bait!" He grinned at that point, and then seemed to want to append what he'd said, raising a finger in thought. "In _fact_, I wouldn't even go so far as to call you that. For their sister, oh, the boys will come _running_. For you? I dunno. But, doesn't hurt to be on the safe side." He chuckled. "If there's one thing Dean Winchester can't resist, it's saving family." He looked at Adam and shrugged humbly. "Should have listened to your sister, turns out."

There was a low chuckle and Zachariah turned around. "What's so funny, Alex?"

She looked at Adam mockingly. Her arms were crossed and her face held no emotion but contempt and judgement. "Just... why'd you even bother to bring _him _here? He's not _family_. Sam and Dean will want _me_. Not this illegitimate douche bag." She gave Zachariah a cold little smile. "Could have saved yourself some trouble."

Zachariah stood up from his seat on the table, turned on his heel, came to her. "_Huh_," he said in deep interest. "So that's really how your family feels about him?" He sighed dramatically. "Then I guess there's no reason to keep him around." He was animated, as if he had a great idea. "I guess I'll just let him go free and clear!" He looked at Alex and chuckled darkly. "I'm just kidding, of course. I'll put him back in the ground, good and dead."

He turned around, took a couple steps toward Adam—and Alex wasn't willing to hold her bluff. "No—don't."

Zachariah turned around, looked at her with a triumphant little smile. "That's what I thought. Nice try though, Alex. _A_ for effort." He seemed well pleased with himself and held his arms wide, indicating them both. "I mean, how can Dean resist? It's two for the price of one! And call me crazy, but it'll get him over here on the double. If it were just Adam, I bet they'd drag their feet, take all night…" he wagged a finger at her now. "Just watch. An hour, maybe two. Dean's in here, saying yes to Michael to save his precious baby sister. And the Winchester mutt too, I guess."

He looked at Adam and smiled. Adam's was positively infuriated. "But you said_ I'm _supposed to fight the devil."

"Mmm, not so much. Hey, if it's any consolation, you happen to be the illegitimate half-brother of the guy we do care about." Zachariah grinned patronizingly. "That's not bad, is it?"

"So you lied… about everything." Adam looked away, clenching his jaw angrily.

"We didn't_ lie_," Zachariah corrected, sitting back down on the table. "We just... avoided certain truths to manipulate you."

Adam stared at him balefully and Alex muttered "told you." She was glaring daggers at the back of Zachariah's head.

"You son of a bitch," Adam said quietly, shaking his head.

"Hey, how do you think _I_ feel? I'm the one that's got to put up with that dumb, slack-jawed look on your face. Kid, we didn't have a choice. Gotta do what I gotta do, and nothing else was working. Michael needs his vessel and he put _me_ in charge of that." He chuckled again, but it was a nervous sound. "Talk about high pressure, am I right?" When neither of them did anything but glare, Zachariah rolled his eyes, refocused on Adam. "The Winchesters got _one_ blind spot, and it's family, each other in particular. See, Sam and Dean, they're gonna put aside their differences and they're gonna come get the two of you, and that is gonna put Dean right here… right where I need him."

"Yeah, except… he won't do it," Alex told Zachariah. He turned to look at her. "This is a huge waste of your time, Zachariah," she said, putting every ounce of energy into sounding like she believed it. "He won't say yes. Not now, not _ever_."

Zachariah nodded, smiling to himself. "You wish that were true now don't you, sweetpea?" Her expression darkened at the nickname. "Now that I have you, trust me… if Adam wasn't motivation enough, _you_ sure as hell will be. I mean, did you see how your _boyfriend_ reacted to seeing me cut you open? Dean'll do whatever I want him to do." He stood up, adjusted his suit, drew in a deeply contented breath as Adam and Alex watched him with glares. "Yep, feels good to be back on top! This is the night! _Our_ night. The magic finally happens, and it's all because of you two." He pointed a finger at each of them, then took in a thoughtful breath, puffing himself up. "And me. But who's keeping score?"

"You really like to hear yourself talk, don't you, you son of a bitch," Alex asked, and uncrossed her arms, staring him down. "Well you can shut the fuck up, cuz I'm not letting this happen."

"Oh, and you'll stop me how?" Zach asked, went to her, invading her personal space and looking into her eyes deeply. She recoiled, but she was against the wall and there was nowhere to go. He smiled then, reached around behind her, slid his hand down, grasped the hilt of her hunting knife that had been hidden by her long t-shirt and flannel. She watched him pull it out and appraise it thoughtfully. _Dammit._ He wagged it at her, his eyes raised up high. "I'm impressed that you would think about taking your own life to stop this from happening, to give me nothing to hold over Dean," he told her, and she was shocked that he knew that she'd thought about it. He narrowed his eyes at her. "But would you really kill Adam, too?"

She said nothing, just stared at the angel defiantly.

He laughed cheerfully, looked at Adam. "The things this family will do for each other. I'm tellin' ya."

"Do you really feel okay about half the people on this planet biting the dust because of your stupid angel pissing match?" Alex demanded, and Zachariah returned his attention to her, made a thoughtful face.

"_Mmm_… yeah!"

Alex could have strangled him. "_Screw_ you."

He shocked her when he touched her face with the backs of his fingers. She recoiled from his touch. "I _do_ have the next few minutes free, sweet cheeks," he said, smiling darkly, his voice suddenly sensual. She smacked his hand away forcefully. "What?" he feigned surprise, amused. "I thought you_ liked _angels! That's what Castiel told me…" his voice lowered a couple notches, he smiled at her leeringly. "You _are _a naughty girl, aren't you?"

"Hey man, you wanna leave her alone?" Adam asked. He was standing up, shoulders drawn up near his ears.

Zachariah looked amused and impressed, and he stepped away from Alex. "Wouldya look at that—the trademark Winchester hero complex." Adam looked murderous and Zachariah rolled his eyes. "Calm down, kid. Geez, I'm just having a little fun."

"You let me out of here _now_! The deal is off!" Adam demanded, looking positively scared shitless.

"Will you cool your jets, corky? Sit down. I still need you. Two Winchesters for the price of one, remember?" Adam didn't sit down and Zachariah grew more serious. "Plus, you still get your severance, I'm not gonna go back on _that_. You still get to see your mom, okay?" His tone softened, became almost dangerous. "I'm being pretty damn generous right now, you really should just shut up and accept my offer."

Adam's lip curled up slightly in scorn. "Yeah, and you really should just take your offer and shove it up your saggy old white ass."

Zachariah grew impatient. "You know what? I keep hearing _this_…" Zachariah used his hand and made a talking motion. "But what I _want _to be hearing is _this_." He closed his hand-mouth and in tandem, Adam fell forward onto the table. He caught himself with his hands as he spit up dark, red blood. "Yeah," Zachariah said, pleased. "That's better."

"Stop it, Zachariah!" Alex said, going to Adam and grabbing either arm, bracing him and helping him stay stable, helped him sit back down into his chair.

"Where's the fun in that?" Zachariah asked.

Filled with hatred for the angel who was currently grinning at them idiotically, Alex practically snarled. "You're a fucking _bully_!" she spat, and he just grinned wider.

"Yeah. I am!" he said, and suddenly Alex found herself heaving up blood too and falling sideways. "I'll leave you to it!" Zach said, and disappeared.

Adam was struggling as Alex pushed herself up to her feet, gagging on a mouthful of coppery, tangy blood. She spat onto the floor vengefully. "_Shit_, I hate Zachariah," she muttered, supporting herself against the table with both hands, breathing heavily. Her head was spinning.

Adam, slumped down in his chair, was looking at her in shock. His chin was covered in blood. "I _told_ you—" Alex said, but it wasn't in a mean tone. "Angels are lying assholes."

Adam looked almost like he could cry. "I… I should have listened to you guys," he said, and then gagging, he made a sound like a whimper.

"Spit, okay?" Alex said, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Try and sit up a little."

He looked at her with vast amounts of uncertainty and fear. "Why are you being nice to me? After everything I've done?" His voice broke, maybe because his throat was full of blood, maybe because he was scared. "You guys told me and I didn't listen."

"Whatever. What's done is done. Don't focus on that," Alex told him, trying to distract him. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, looked at the bright red blood there… and then realized… _oh my God._.. this was actually a great thing. "Wait a minute…" she muttered to herself, and then suddenly found herself smiling crookedly through bloody teeth, realizing Zach's mistake. "Zachariah is a lot stupider than I thought..." she said, her mind racing.

"What do you mean?" Adam asked.

"Spit out as much blood as you can," she told him, and took the bowl of beers, dumped the contents out all over the floor, then held the bowl out to Adam, indicating that he spit there. "We're gonna need it."

He looked at her like she was nuts.

* * *

The three of them kept a fast pace—they'd been in Bobby's study just thirty seconds ago, now they were outside somewhere, following Cas, who seemed to know where he was going. "Where the hell are we?" Dean asked, as Castiel led the way through a dark, overgrown parking lot. Beside them was a huge rusted structure, a warehouse of some kind. It was still the middle of the night.

"Van Nuys, California," Cas replied shortly. He seemed to be in a hurry, his long legs keeping a brisk stride that Dean could barely match. Maybe halfway because he hurt all over from getting beat up earlier. He fought through the pain. Sam was beside Cas, looking around suspiciously, jumpy.

"Where's the beautiful room?" Dean asked, honestly confused—all that there was some old abandoned warehouse looking building lit up by a couple flickering street lights.

"It's in there," Cas told him, indicating the building they were walking beside.

Dean balked. "The beautiful room is in an abandoned muffler factory in Van Nuys, California?" he asked in a tense whisper.

"Where'd you think it was?" Cas asked. They came to the end of the building where there was a door covered in graffiti. Cas stopped, casting careful glances around. There was a single, flickering light overhead that lit the area in a pale blue cast.

"I—I don't know," Dean replied, looking at the building and definitely not associating it with the room he remembered being stuck in eight months ago. "Jupiter? A blade of grass? Not... Van Nuys."

"Never mind the location of the room," Cas said seriously, his gaze intense and first going to Dean, and then Sam. "This is very risky. Are you two clear on the plan?"

"No, not really," Dean said. "You said you'd clear out the mooks and then we go in and grab the kids, but… I thought you said _before_ that the angels were too fast for you." He looked at the wound on Castiel's shoulder pointedly.

"They are," Cas replied matter-of-fact despite his stern expression. "But I'm going to try despite the odds. And if I can't fight them off… I have another way."

"What other way?" Sam asked, sounding very apprehensive.

Cas wordlessly began to take off his tie. "It's what you might call a long shot," he said.

"What... are you doing?" Sam asked, frowning at Cas.

Castiel handed his tie to Sam without explanation. "Hold this," he said. Sam took it and looked at it oddly, unsure.

"What's the other way?" Dean asked, also looking at the tie suspiciously.

Castiel reached into the pocket of his trench coat and pulled a box cutter out, looked at it sort of grimly, slid the blade up with a few plastic sounding clicks. "This may be unpleasant for you to watch," Castiel said, and began unbuttoning his shirt.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, baffled. "Whoa Cas, what's with the peep show?" Dean asked, but Cas said nothing, just pulled his dress shirt open. Both Sam and Dean jerked backwards slightly when Castiel sliced into himself, began to carve the shape of a circle into the skin of his torso.

"Whoa, hey, what—" Sam fumbled, clearly not sure if he should stand and watch or stop Cas.

Dean squinted, watching silently, beginning to recognize the shape being drawn in blood. "Are you… putting an _angel sigil _on yourself?"

Castiel gave Dean a look that was almost sarcastic. "Yes." He then wordlessly returned to his work. There was a long silence, and the brothers looked at each other uncertainly.

"What will that do to you?" Sam finally asked, looking at Cas hesitantly.

Cas grimaced slightly as he turned the blade, pulled it upwards, cutting another line into himself. "I have no idea," he replied without stopping. "I don't think it's been attempted before. But in all likelihood, it will kill me."

Dean's expression fell. "Whoa, whoa, _whoa_…" he looked at Cas, aghast for a second. "Cas, buddy, let's back up a sec, look at our other options…"

Cas had finished carving and looked at Dean somberly. "There _are _no other options, Dean." He looked at both of them in turn. "This has to work. I go in there, clear out the guards. You go in, spring the trap, distract Zachariah, Sam kills him with the blade I gave him. There can be no errors."

"You're really gonna risk your life for us again?" Dean asked, feeling sort of dazed by what was happening, looking at Cas and feeling confused.

"Yes," Cas replied, and looked at Dean meaningfully. "Don't let me down, Dean."

After the shit he'd put the angel through, the things he'd said to him, the way he'd tried to bully Cas away from his sister… most anyone else would have ditched long ago. Dean was beginning to realize he'd misjudged Cas. And even though Dean didn't approve of the angel's relationship with his sister, he couldn't deny that Castiel cared about her deeply. Enough to maybe die for a chance to save her. And that moved Dean to speechlessness.

"Cas—" Sam protested as the angel finished buttoning up his shirt.

"We don't have time to argue," Cas said, cutting him off. "I'll do my best to hold them off, defeat them. But if I can't... if I don't return…" he looked down, his voice softened. "Tell her that I'm sorry. And Sam…" he nodded almost imperceptibly at the tie. "Give that to her."

Sam's eyebrows moved together just slightly. "Why?"

Cas said nothing, just looked at Sam tensely, and then turned his attention to Dean. "Swear to me that you will never hurt her again, Dean."

Dean swallowed, feeling strange. It was like Cas knew he wasn't coming back. His voice faltered. "I-I won't, Cas." The angel looked at him long and hard, as if he were weighing the honesty of Dean's answer. He finally glanced at Sam.

"Keep her safe," Cas said. "Both of you. Don't give in to the angels." He went to the door, put a hand on the knob.

"Cas, buddy, you're talking like you aren't gonna come back from this," Dean said, halting Cas in his tracks.

The angel just looked back at both of them one last time and then wordlessly went into the warehouse.

* * *

"I'm so stupid," Adam groaned, "I wish I'd listened to you guys."

The two of them were sitting on the floor underneath the gigantic painting of some lady draped in flowy robes. Alex held a hand over her stomach, grimacing. Zachariah had put some nasty mojo on them, that was for sure.

She leaned her head back against the wall tiredly, looked at Adam sidelong for a minute. She needed to set something straight with him. "Hey, the crap I said about you not being family and stuff to Zachariah? I didn't mean it. I was trying to get him to let you go."

Adam looked at her, nodded through his pain. "Yeah. I know. Thanks for trying." He was trying to sound okay, but she could tell he was freaking out beneath the surface.

"It's okay Adam," Alex told him. If she could get him to keep his head, things would go better for everyone. "We're gonna get out of here. Just remember what I told you to do."

Adam nodded, cringed, repositioning himself a little bit against the wall. "Yeah, okay I got it. If I can stand up. I feel really bad. Am I gonna die?"

"Nope," Alex replied immediately, trying to interject some humor into the situation. "You're not allowed."

That got a little smile from him.

"Dean will be here soon," she told Adam, "and if not him, definitely Cas." She paused heavily, thought of Cas and how scared she'd been to see him there, facing down a bunch of angels all while he bled from his shoulder. And then she thought about Dean, hoped that she'd have enough time to stop him from saying yes. Her little hare-brained plan was pretty rickety, but it was better than nothing...

"But it's a trap," Adam protested, distracting her.

"They'll know that," she told him.

Adam frowned. "And they'll come anyway?"

Alex shrugged. Did Adam really think there was an alternative? "Yeah. Of course."

Adam thought about that for a minute. "Must be nice to have people you know will always come for you," he said, looking down at the floor. He was introspective and quiet. "You know, I don't think I would have minded growing up with you guys," he said, then quickly tried to sound less emotional. "I mean, getting to kill stuff is cool." He paused, glanced at her. "And so is always having someone around."

"You had your mom though, right?" Alex asked, to which Adam shrugged crookedly, looked a little unwilling to discuss it, but did anyway after a brief silence.

"She... wasn't around much, especially when I was school age." He looked at her, and she realized that maybe they were more similar than she'd assumed. "She was there but... she also wasn't. Sound familiar?" he asked, and maybe he was thinking the same thing, that they weren't as different as he'd thought.

"Yeah," she said slowly, thinking about Dad. "I'm sorry," she told Adam, and meant it. He just looked at the ground glumly. She realized how lucky she'd been to at least have her brothers growing up. Adam hadn't had anyone. He looked so lonely to her right then. "Hey, when we get out of here... there's an extra seat in the Impala." Adam looked up at her. She smiled almost playfully, trying to lighten the mood. "I'll teach you everything I know."

He matched her playful smile, made an overly thoughtful face. "Dunno if I can handle those levels of wisdom and knowledge," he joked.

"Shut _up_," she told him and she rolled her eyes, coughed on a laugh, tasted more blood in her mouth.

They fell silent again, waiting. Alex looked at the little angel statuette that sat on the gilded table to her left. She was trying not to think about how badly this could end. Last she knew, Dean had disappeared and blasted Castiel away to kingdom come… where had Dean run to? If he had planned to say yes, why was Zachariah holding her and Adam? Something must have happened to change his mind, or maybe… maybe Cas stopped Dean from following through. Maybe Sam found him before he got far.

Alex hated not knowing. Sitting here helpless and useless was literally unbearable to her. All she knew was that Cas knew where she was and had told her he would be back for her. And she believed him. But she hated being a bargaining chip. She really would have turned her knife on herself and killed herself if she thought it would save half of the people on the planet. But that wasn't an option anymore. There was nothing to do but sit and wait and hope.

She heaved a huge, gusty breath, trying to expel some stress.

* * *

Quietly, Castiel entered into the dim warehouse for the second time that day. The door shut behind him and he moved forward slowly into the darkness, watchful and careful. This time, he knew what he was up against. His senses were all straining, his muscles tense. He held his blade in hand. He saw no one, but knew the angels were close. He could hear their thoughts; whispers on the very edge of his mind.

He came to the small structure within the warehouse where he knew the beautiful room was and then suddenly one of the whispering voices was loud, _close_—and Castiel whirled, barely ducking and dodging the slash of a blade aimed for the back of his neck. Cas's hand shot out and grabbed the other angel, Enoch, by the wrist and twisted it backwards, stabbing him in the leg with his own blade. Enoch screamed even as he held on tightly to the blade and Cas yanked it out, stabbed down at Enoch's stomach. Falling down onto his back, Enoch resisted, held the blade away, but Castiel used every ounce of strength he had and put his weight behind it, rammed the blade downward into Enoch, who again screamed as the blade plunged into his vessel. His eyes and mouth filled with blue light, he collapsed, dead, underneath Castiel.

Cas stood up, his blade at his side, his shoulder ringing in renewed pain. He cast glances around, hearing the other angels whispering, growing closer. But they remained hidden. "You were warned not to return alone," came a deep voice, and Castiel turned quickly to see Hezion standing about twenty feet away, his blade at his side. His dark eyes glinted unreadably at Castiel. "Where is Dean Winchester?"

"Not coming," Cas replied, sizing Hezion up, knowing that it would be nearly impossible for him to defeat this particular angel.

Hezion paused heavily, seeming to be let down by the information. He then raised his chin, looking at Castiel without any hint of emotion. "In that case, I've been ordered to kill you, Castiel. I'm sorry."

Castiel bristled. "You don't know the meaning of that word."

Hezion looked unsure of Castiel's statement, but made no reply to it, only tossed his blade to his other hand. His eyebrows raised slightly. "I can't make promises, but I'll do my best to make it quick for your sake."

Castiel narrowed his eyes, realized that the whispers of the angels were closer now. He glanced over his shoulder—Daniel was there, and closing in slowly. Castiel turned in a small, tight circle. The other angels—Ishmael, Sabriel, Gad, Zipporah—were all closing in, surrounding Cas on all sides. His gaze swept over them, he turned back to face Hezion, who was slowly coming closer. Cas knew that he had no chance against them if they all attacked him at once. He would have fought them to the death had they attacked one by one—but it was clear, now, what they planned to do. Outnumber him completely. Cas realized he was forced into using what he had planned as his last resort.

He thought of his promises to Alex, his assurances that he would never leave her, the commitment he had made to protect her. Guilt washed over him at the thought of him breaking his word to her, leaving her alone, perhaps forever, should this kill him.

_"I don't want you to leave me,"_ she had told him tearfully just a couple days ago.

"_I won't,"_ he'd insisted.

_"You don't understand. I lose everyone. Everyone."_

Her words echoed in every part of him.

The knowledge that he was doing this to_ save _her was the only thing that made it possible for him to continue. This was sacrifice, and she was worthy of it. And with that in mind, he dropped his blade to the floor where it thudded loudly, echoing. Castiel's shoulders were heaving, he glanced between Hezion and Daniel almost angrily. "What are you waiting for?" he demanded, taunting them to come closer, then glancing to his side at Sabriel. "_Come on_."

And they all closed in on him, blades held high, Castiel ripped open his shirt, pressed his palm into the center of the sigil, and he erupted into blazing light, wind, and fury. His last thought, as everything burned to sunlight, was of her.

* * *

"What was that noise?" Adam asked, startled.

Alex had heard it too—it had been like a high pitched explosion and wind, and her adrenaline kicked up a few notches. She shook her head, on high alert. "I... dunno."

They looked at each other uncertainly. They were both weak and tired from the blood loss. Suddenly, one of the walls _opened_ like a door, and Dean was rushing in. Shocked at the sight of him, Alex could only stare for a second. She noticed that his face was messed up, like he'd been beat to hell and back.

"Hey. Hey," he said, coming to them urgently, dropping to a knee. "You two okay?"

"It's a trap, Dean!" Adam sputtered, trying to get to his feet and grabbing and dragging Alex up with him. Dean stood with them, his hands on their arms as he cast glances around.

"Yeah, I got that memo," he said tersely.

"Well, _finally_!" came a new voice, and Dean whirled around to face Zachariah, who had suddenly appeared right behind him.

"Zachariah," Dean said, standing between the angel and his siblings. "I should have known you were gonna show your ugly ass face."

"Yeah, you should have!" Zachariah said, smiling widely, looking at Dean mockingly. "Did you really think it would be that easy?"

"Did _you_?" Dean challenged cooly. Sam came out of nowhere at Zachariah from behind, an angel blade raised high—but Zachariah turned around at blazing speeds and knocked it out of his hand, threw Sam against the decorative room divider. The second the angel turned around, Alex screamed "_now_, Adam!"

And with what little strength he had, Adam tore the big painting they'd been sitting beneath off of the wall, revealing an angel sigil drawn in his and Alex's blood. Alex slammed her palm down onto it, turned and looked over her shoulder just in time to see Zachariah's dumb, slack-jawed look of shock as he became a haze of light that burst and then disappeared completely.

The room went completely still into silence. Dean looked shocked, stunned. Sam, on the floor, stared.

Alex looked at them breathlessly, a weird look on her face. "_What_?" she asked. "You think I was gonna let you say _yes_?" she grimaced, spit more blood out, sick to her stomach.

"I was… I was gonna kill him," Dean said lamely, like she'd spoiled his big plan and Alex just gave him a look, leaned against the table for support as Adam bent over, a hand on each knee.

Sam stood up, wincing a little, and Alex looked at Dean, then Sam, her eyebrows drew close together. "Wait. Where's Cas?"

Sam's expression flickered and something about it seemed to strike her as foreboding. She looked at Dean for an explanation and he wouldn't look back at her. Alex looked at him with a suddenly horrible feeling. "W-where is he?" the brothers looked at each other silently, then back at her, said nothing.

"Listen, Al…" Dean went toward her, she backed up, looked at him mistrustfully, and he stopped short.

Sam, who was up now, glanced at Dean fleetingly, went to his sister and put a gentle arm around her. "Let's get outta here, huh?" he asked, looking around at the room.

"But…" she trailed off. Normally she'd probably be pummeling him for answers, but the way he and Dean had looked at each other, the way Sam's expression had wavered when she asked where Cas was… she became blank, wordless.

"Can you walk?" Dean asked Adam, who nodded, said yeah.

Sam led her toward the exit of the room. Beyond it was the interior of a dark warehouse, and Alex looked up at the side of Sam's face, feeling woozy. "Sam, where is he?" she asked faintly, not sure why frightened tears were springing to her eyes.

"Just, let's get you outta here, okay?" Sam repeated himself, not giving her an answer, walking with her out of the beautiful room and into the dark, dingy warehouse. Why wouldn't he answer her?

Alex glanced at the dark warehouse, and then she saw, on the ground about ten feet away, a single, discarded, silver blade. Her heart dropped and she froze, horrified, realizing something horrible had happened here. She tore away from Sam, staggered to the blade and weakly dropped to her knees, picked it up, then looked back at Sam, completely beside herself. "Is this his?"

Sam's silent, grim expression was all the confirmation she needed and she looked around wildly, then back at her brother. "W-where is he?" she asked, dazed, shellshocked.

Sam approached her slowly, hesitantly, as if he were trying not to set her off. "We don't know. He… he made it possible for us to get you out."

Alex looked at the blade, not understanding. Feeling blindsided. Remembering, just a few hours ago, Cas's arms around her, holding her close, silently promising that they would never let her go. And now this big empty cold nothing, this blade covered in blood and Sam refusing to tell her where Castiel was. Her violent, uneven heartbeat was choking her. She looked up at Sam, in shock. "Is… is he dead?" she managed just barely, clenching the blade tightly to herself.

Sam knelt down beside her, put a hand on her shoulder and was very, very gentle. "Shh, hey, _hey_, don't think about that. Listen. He carved an angel sigil onto himself, so I mean, he's probably fine, right?"

Alex just stared down at the blade in sickened silence, unable to agree with her brother for even a single second. She felt, deeper than deep, that Cas was _not _fine. She couldn't find words, she almost felt like she would pass out. But Sam was taking her by either arm.

"Come here, come on," Sam guided gently, standing her up. "We need to get out of here."

He helped her walk out of the warehouse. She would have no memory of how they got from the warehouse to the car they stole, such was her distress.

* * *

The two angels stood on the deck of an expensive yacht at sunset. They stood at the railing, side by side, silent. The boat was still, idling. Zachariah cleared his throat nervously, glanced over Michael. Here, in some rich dead guy's heaven, Zachariah saw Michael as who he had last been—John Winchester from 1979. Michael didn't look happy. He had his hands clasped together on the railing, and even though he leaned casually, his hands were tight enough that the knuckles were whitened. "So, yet again, Zachariah," Michael finally said. "You've failed to obtain my vessel."

"Dean's... just not cooperating," Zachariah said hesitatingly, choosing his words carefully, deeply afraid that he would be fired,_ literally,_ for his failures. "Believe me boss, I tried, I did, but I'll do better next time, just—"

"Save your simpering for another day, Zachariah," Michael told him, and looked out at the ocean for a moment. "Didn't I tell you this was your final chance?"

"Yes," Zachariah replied faintly, trying to think of a way to get out of this, but realizing that there really wasn't one. He was probably as good as dead now. Michael was_ pissed_. As soon as Zachariah had recovered from being blasted away by that _bitch _Alex Winchester, Michael had pulled him here, against his will. This was not good.

"Listen," Michael said finally. "I prefer to do things by the book. You know that. But I recognize that time is short and my options are all but nonexistent." He paused and looked over at Zachariah levelly. "Dean is stubborn. More stubborn than we thought. And now that you let our only leverage over him get away… we have even less to work with than we did before."

Zachariah watched Michael nervously. This felt like the lead in to an ass kicking.

"We're running out of time," Michael continued levelly, now putting a hand against the railing, spreading his arms out a bit as he looked over the tranquil ocean again. "Lucifer is close to obtaining his vessel—very close. I need mine. I trusted you with an important task, Zachariah. And you've let me down."

Zachariah wasn't too proud to beg, and he realized now was the time. "Gimme one more chance, Michael. I'll, I'll—" Zachariah recoiled under Michael's sidelong restrained glare. "We-we offer to bring his mom back, his dad," Zachariah fumbled, trying to prove himself useful, trying to think of _anything_. "I can get the sister again, maybe even one or both of the brothers!"

"_Can_ you?" Michael challenged stoically. "As I recall, you tried and failed for months to do that. You had them for, what, the span of a few small hours today before you lost them again. No." Michael raised his chin a little, looking down his nose at the other angel. "And besides. Dean resisted you the last time you reduced his siblings to bleeding lumps on the floor," he pointed out, reminding Zachariah of when he'd tricked the Winchesters into going to their father's old storage building. Zachariah had made all three of them suffer, had practically killed Sam, but Dean had _still_ said no. Michael looked at Zachariah patronizingly. "Why did you think the same tactic would work_ this _time?"

"I mean, I thought that I could—" Zachariah began.

"Dean Winchester is a wasted labor," Michael cut in sharply. "Even if you hadn't been blown away by the two youngest ones, do you really think he would have said _yes_? I've grown tired of his refusals to cooperate, his game of hide and seek. I don't have time for it any longer."

Zachariah remained silent, unsure if saying anything else would help or harm him. He was completely at Michael's mercy right now, and felt the scales tipping steeply against his favor. "I'm going to give you one final chance, Zachariah. If you do what I say, you'll be rewarded. If not, you'll be stripped of every power you've ever had."

Zachariah tried not to wince under Michael's intimidating, penetrating gaze. "I'm-I'm in," he said, because he knew he didn't have another choice. "Just tell me what to do."

Michael looked at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "Adam Milligan is the only option left. He's not preferable, but he's better than what I have right now. Which is, as you might remember… _nothing_."

"But... I thought it had to be Dean," Zachariah protested slowly, thinking back to the prophecy.

"The Lord works in mysterious ways," Michael murmured, seemingly to himself. He glanced at the other angel fleetingly, appraisingly. "Do you believe that, brother?"

"Uh yeah, of course," Zachariah replied automatically.

"I do too," Michael said in distant thoughtfulness. "Perhaps this is one of them. Perhaps our father is testing my ability to adapt to unpredictable situations." Michael straightened up.

Zachariah looked at him in confusion. "But—but what about—"

"_Enough_!" Michael suddenly exclaimed, and off in the distance, thunder rumbled. The sky had darkened, Michael seemed several inches taller and wider. Zachariah was quiet for a long moment and Michael's expression faded back into calm indifference. The sky returned to a soft rosy orange.

"Now," Michael continued in measured calm. "Dean was my plan all along. But Adam... is accessible." He heaved a heavy breath. Zachariah felt a great amount of dread rising up inside. Adam was _not_ accessible, not anymore. But Michael seemed to think he was. "I have a way to convince Adam to say yes... but I'll need your help making it happen."

Withering a little, sheepish almost but mostly just afraid, Zachariah hesitated. "Uh, I dunno, he was gung-ho about saying yes there at the beginning but… then I, uh..." Zach laughed nervously, a high-pitched, pathetic sound. "Circumstances unfortunately were not to his liking and uh…" Zachariah decided to cut the BS. "I pissed him off royally." He tried to keep himself light and joking, hoping Michael's anger would stay at bay, that maybe the archangel would value Zachariah's forthcoming truthfulness. "I think the kid would rather eat shit than have anything to do with Heaven right now, to be honest with you."

Michael chuckled, as if he knew something the other angel didn't. "Don't worry, Zachariah," he said confidently. "Nothing you could have said to him will change the fact that he's ours already."

Zachariah frowned, tried to follow Michael's logic. "What, his mom?"

They weren't on the yacht anymore. They were in some other heaven, a small kitchen. A woman with blonde hair was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, humming to herself, smiling. She was oblivious to the angels, who remained hidden from her. She wiped her hands on her apron, turned around. "Adam, sweetie, sandwich is ready!" she called, then laughed when a little blonde boy bounded into the kitchen, flapping his arms in excitement.

Michael smiled softly, looked at Zachariah. "Yes, his mother. But I have a new plan for her. I have a way to use her that we didn't think of before."

* * *

_Alex woke up slowly, in a pleasant fog of sleepiness. When had she dozed off? Her head rested on Cas's bare chest, his arms enveloped her, she rested in the rhythm of his steady breathing. Underneath her ear, she could hear his steady thudding heartbeat. "Hello," he said softly as she raised her head and looked up at him. His face was soft and boyish, relaxed. She remembered everything: Bobby's attic, the lovemaking, how he'd held her and traced patterns of fascination across the skin of her shoulders as she'd drifted off..._

_She smiled almost sheepishly. He was warm and they were still naked under the trench coat together. "Hello."_

And now? Now Alex was in the back seat of some stolen car, not even remembering how she'd gotten there or how long they'd been driving. Adam was beside her, Dean was driving, Sam was silent in the front seat. Where was Cas? It had been a hours, days, weeks since they left the warehouse she thought. Or it felt that way. She wasn't sure, she felt sick all over. She kept telling herself: Cas will reappear soon. He'll call us and angel himself over and all of this sick worrying will have been over nothing.

_After she'd said hello back, she'd asked him how long she'd been asleep. A few hours, he'd said, looking at her with this soft, deep gaze. She remembered feeling strange, shy, beautiful, part of a moment she for once in her life really _belonged_ in, there with Cas in the attic, in the space of what they had created and discovered together. What was theirs alone._

Now she was cold, far away from that place she only had with him. He was missing, he was lost, and she knew it, felt it deep down past her bones. If he didn't reappear soon, if he didn't call soon, she would know her worst fear was true. She held his blade tightly in her lap, refusing to think about it, unable to think about how she would even begin to cope with losing Cas forever. She squeezed her eyes shut, remembered.

_He ran his hand down her arm, looking at it in deep, distracted thought. "Alex," Castiel finally had said softly, his eyebrows pressing in together just a little bit as his eyes sought out hers. And the look on his face had stilled her, she felt like he was about to give her bad news, like he was about to tell her something that scared him. He swallowed, searched her eyes. And the second he started to speak, the tone of his voice gave him away, she knew what he was going to say. "I think... that I—" he began. _

_And when she realized what he was about to say—that he was in love with her or that he loved her—she scrambled to cut him off. "D-don't," she protested, suddenly caught up in fear.  
_

_Castiel remained silent, but looked at her, his expression slightly wounded, and Alex regretted her gut-punch reaction of fear. "I… I know you do." She became quiet, looking down and feeling a little mortified with herself. But she was afraid of those words, because anyone who'd ever said that to her had disappeared or died or not felt that way about her for long. It almost felt like a curse to say that you loved someone out loud. She looked back up at him, not able to say the words themselves, even though she wanted to. She couldn't.  
_

Alex opened her eyes back up to the dark, unfamiliar car. Beside her, Adam shifted and she could feel him looking at her. Dean and Sam kept glancing back, too. It was like they knew something she didn't. Like they had already decided that Cas wasn't coming back.

She stared into nothing and felt nothing.

It began to rain outside, heavily.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ DUN DUN DUN! Plot twist! What will happen?! What is Michael plotting? What is Dean gonna do with this car full of flight risks? How will Alex cope with the disappearance of Cas? And ZACHARIAH LIIIIIVES OH NO… sdlfjsdlkfjdslfj. Leave a review, say hello, etc. Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter ;_; I love Adam and Alex's scenes, and of course Dean and Cas coming to terms in some ways… gaaah.  
_


	38. Things Fall Apart

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 38 / Things Fall Apart

"_One by one hollow heroes separate as they run."_  
- Breaking Benjamin

* * *

**Barstow, California**

The waitress set down four plates at the booth. "Get you guys anything else?" she asked.

"I think we're good, thanks," Sam told her, and gave her a wan, distracted attempt at a smile. The waitress told them to just let her know if they needed anything else, then left them to it.

They were at a twenty-four-seven diner, it was still raining outside, and it was early, like _crack of dawn_ early—they'd driven in silence for about two hours after leaving Van Nuys in the stolen car. Sam was trying to keep himself together mentally at this point. He was bone-tired exhausted, run ragged, and not sure what the hell was happening right now.

He glanced across the table at Dean, who was stuffing his face, taking huge, rude bites of his breakfast sandwich. Usually, food always got Dean in a better mood, but right now, the oldest Winchester was just eating like it was his job. He didn't look happy at all. Beside him, Adam was about to start on his sausage and biscuits, glancing around uncomfortably, obviously feeling a little awkward and cautious, unsure about the situation he'd found himself in. Sam couldn't blame him. Suddenly stuck on the road with your family—but a family you didn't even know at all. Add the angel drama onto the top of all that and it was a wonder Adam was being as calm and composed as he was.

Beside Sam, Alex had picked up her fork and was pushing her scrambled eggs around her plate slowly. She'd been really quiet the whole time since Van Nuys, and it was hard to tell what exactly she was thinking or going through. Sam stared down at his eggs and toast. He didn't feel hungry, but he made himself eat. The four of them didn't say anything, just ate in increasingly stilted silence. Sam could barely stomach the food, he was too distressed. He hadn't talked with his older brother yet about everything that had happened over the past forty-eight hours or so, but he knew he needed to. He thought about Dean picking fights, taking off, being unwilling to cooperate or listen to reason, running away after hurting Alex and Cas alike… it was all horrible and nerve-wracking, but the thing Sam felt most uncertain about was the sudden one-eighty Dean had done, promising not to say yes after being so adamant about not saying no any longer. It was confusing as hell and Sam wasn't sure what to believe anymore. All he knew was that he didn't want to confront Dean about it yet—not with Alex and Adam present.

It all made for some very high strung nerves. Sam didn't like being without a game plan—they'd settled on 'going back to Bobby's,' but what after that? Was Dean really anti-Michael again? Were they going to band together and fight this thing after Dean had given him that grand speech in the panic room about saying yes on _their_ terms? Sam had a bad feeling about this whole thing... and with the sudden addition of Adam, who was quiet, watchful, cautious of them—everything felt a little bit claustrophobic. Sam glanced at Dean at the exact second his brother happened to look up at him.

"_What_?" Dean asked through a mouthful of food.

"Nothing," Sam hedged, and made himself take another bite of his eggs. For another minute, there was no more talking—just silverware clinking and Adam drinking up the last of his Coke through his straw with a loud, sputtering sucking sound.

Sam gave him a look, like _cut that out_. And Adam stopped, cleared his throat, set his cup down, glanced around at everyone at the table. He looked like he felt like the odd man out. "So. Uh. What do we do now?" he asked, maybe figuring that if no one else was gonna talk broach the subject, he would. Sam looked at Dean, who said nothing, just chewed a huge mouthful and looked out the window pointedly. Not getting an answer, Adam looked between the two brothers a little suspiciously, sensing the discord. "Something you're not telling me?"

"Everything's fine," Sam said, trying to avoid any conversation that was too deep. "Eat your breakfast."

Maybe he came across a little brusque or maybe Adam didn't like the tone of Sam's voice. Adam's expression became guarded and a little bit offended. "Everything's _fine_?" He grew sullen. "I may not be one of the _gang_ but you don't have to_ lie_ to me."

Becoming frustrated at himself and the situation, Sam backpedaled. "Sorry Adam, it's just… I don't _know _what's next, okay?"

"So we figure it out." Adam said, maybe trying to be helpful, but instead just getting on Sam's nerves. "I mean like it or not, I'm part of this now."

Yeah, maybe he was, but it wasn't that simple. Sam didn't know what to say, just heaved a deep breath. Adam was coming in kind of late into this situation and how could Sam even _begin _to explain what they were really up against? They hadn't even told Adam about how Sam was Lucifer's vessel. The kid might think he knew the situation, but the truth was he _didn't_—he _couldn't_ have unless he'd lived through it with all of them.

At that point, Alex mumbled something about the bathroom and got up, left the boys to themselves. "She okay?" Adam asked after a couple beats, watching her retreating form for a second, then looking at Sam. "Seems messed up."

"She'll be fine," Sam said, but it was an automatic answer, one he gave only to close the subject. He had no idea if Alex were okay or not. Adam seemed to sense Sam was shutting him down and left it alone, made a face and took one more bite of his breakfast sausage and sat back, tossed his crumpled napkin down onto the plate, stood up, excused himself, headed to the bathroom too.

_Thank God._ The second Adam was out of earshot, Sam leaned forward to Dean, seizing the opportunity. But before he could even open his mouth, Dean cut him off. "Look man, I know what you're going to say, so don't even bother," he said holding up a hand as if to physically stop him. He didn't look Sam in the eye, not fully.

Sam moved back slightly, looked at Dean as if to ask oh _really_?

"I changed my mind, okay? For real. I'm not saying yes." Dean said, his tone forceful. He took in a grudging breath, set his coffee down, still not looking at Sam. "I guess I owe you guys an apology," he said grudgingly.

Sam looked at his brother in disbelief. "An apology," he repeated. "Dean, you need to do a little better than an _apology_."

"What, you want a cookie too?" Dean asked sarcastically, finally looking at his brother, and he shrugged, like he was out of ideas. "I mean, what else am I supposed to do? I said I'm sorry, now we move forward."

Sam was frustrated, to put it mildly. "Hey, you know what?" he leaned closer, his quiet voice sharp. "I don't _trust_ you right now and even if you really _are _sorry, that doesn't do much for me." He didn't bother to hide how pissed he was. "What if you 'change your mind' again, huh? I can't take that chance." Sam leaned forward even more, his tone intense. "I need you to convince me that you're not gonna run off again or pull any more crazy crap like you have the past couple days. I can't let you run this show if you're gonna go AWHOL again."

Annoyed and maybe a little convicted, Dean was getting defensive. "I'm _not_, okay?"

"Swear it," Sam replied intensely.

"I swear," Dean replied immediately, half rolling his eyes, like he was just trying to get Sam off of his back.

Sam looked at him steadily, seriously. "Swear it on Mom."

Dean's expression fell, he blinked a couple times, stunned. "Sam—"

Sam cut him off. "I mean it, Dean."

Dean's lips pursed out slightly. He was clearly not excited about it, but he did what Sam asked, and this time he sounded more like he meant it. "I swear. On Mom's grave." He seemed to resent Sam for bringing Mom into it, though. "You happy?"

Not really. Sam didn't feel much better. His fears were not abated much at all.

Dean looked at him intently, like he was seeing how hard a time Sam was having. He softened a little, relented. "Listen, there's gotta be another way, and we're gonna find it," he said firmly.

Sam bristled at his brother's statement. "That's what I've been trying to_ tell _you," he retorted.

Dean sat back in the booth, spread his arms. "Well I'm listening now, so what have you got?"

Sam faltered. "Uh—" Adam returned and Sam glanced at him as he slid in beside Dean again. "I dunno, maybe we start asking around where we haven't yet? Shamans, mystics, psychics? Someone's gotta know something."

Dean looked uninspired. "Maybe. No one's known jack squat before, but hey. No leaf unturned, right?" It was hard to tell if he were _trying_ to sound cynical or if he just felt that way. But he pinched the bridge of his nose briefly and reached for his cup of coffee, pushing some obvious fatigue away. "I'll call Bobby in a few, see if there's anyone out in this area before we head back."

"We're going on a hunt?" Adam asked.

"An_ information_ hunt," Dean replied a little sarcastically, his eyes darting toward Adam sidelong. "I hope you like long car rides and frustration, kid."

Sam drank a little more of his coffee, too, hoping it would start to work soon. But knowing himself, he knew that he'd need like three shots of espresso to jolt him to clarity at this point. He set the mug of coffee down. It was getting hard to keep morale going right now. He was just tired. He'd never been so tired before in his life. This was hard. For a few minutes, they waited around while Sam ate the rest of his breakfast and Adam hunched down in the seat, stared vacantly out at the restaurant dining room. Dean worked on finishing his coffee.

Finished with his food, Sam glanced back toward the bathrooms, realizing that Alex had been gone awhile now. For a minute, he contemplated whether or not he should go check on her. Usually he wouldn't but… after what had happened today, he felt a sudden, strong pull deep down, urging him to make sure she was okay.

Listening to his instincts, Sam told Adam and Dean "I'll be back in a sec," and he went to the back of the restaurant, hesitated, then knocked on the women's bathroom door lightly. This was kind of awkward. There was no answer from inside. He knocked on the door again, a little louder, cleared his throat. "Uh, Alex? You okay?"

No reply.

_Ah geez. _This was sort of awkward. He nudged the door open, peeked inside, hoping no one saw him and thought he was a creeper. It was a bathroom with multiple stalls, all of which looked open and empty. He heard a weird hiccuping, gasping sound, and peered around the door to get a better view of the room and then he saw his sister was at the sink, bracing herself there, her hands gripping either side of the shining porcelain—her phone was forgotten in one hand as she bent over the sink—had she been trying to call Cas? She was staring down unseeingly, hyperventilating almost, her expression blank and shocked. She looked pale, like she'd been sick, and without a second thought, Sam went to her quickly, helped her to stay standing. He was alarmed at how bad she looked. "Hey whoa, whoa whoa, just breathe," he told his twin, who shook her head, staring at the space in front of her.

"I'm not… I'm…" she didn't seem to be able to form coherent sentences, and realizing that she was shaking, Sam guided her over to the wall, helped her sit down with her back against it. He crouched in front of her, holding her by the arms steadily.

"Listen to me," he told her, trying to get her to look at him. "Breathe in and out, okay? Everything's going to be fine."

He felt his sister grabbing onto the arms of his jacket, her eyes were squeezed shut now, she was panicking, shutting down almost, but clearly trying to regain control. And Sam remembered the last time she had acted this way: the day that Dean was shredded by Hellhounds. _Jesus_, Alex. "You're all right, it's okay," Sam told her urgently, trying to be soothing and calming even though he was_ freaked out _to see how she was floundering. He could see her fighting herself, trying to calm down, and he put a hand on her head, gripping her firmly. "Hey, _hey_, stay here with me, breathe. In and out. That's good."

Her eyes opened up finally, and his heart broke a little bit at the pain in her eyes. "He's _gone_," she said, her voice a pathetic, rasping whisper. "Just gone, and I don't… under… stand…"

"Hey—" Sam tried to smile encouragingly, but it was more sad than anything else. "Give it a little time before you decide he's gone for good, okay?"

She searched his gaze, her expression tense, and it seemed like she was thinking a thousand things but couldn't say any of them. She looked down again, expression twisted up into almost physical pain as she tried to regulate her breathing. Sam suddenly remembered something and he fished around in his coat pocket, drew out the tie that Cas had given to him before he disappeared.

"He told me to give this to you," Sam said, catching her attention.

She looked down to see what he meant, saw the tie, and her face went slack. "I think... he wanted you to keep it for him until he got back," Sam said, thinking that maybe this would give her the hope that Sam didn't really have—he'd seen how resigned Cas had been, how he'd looked like he was knowingly walking into his death. But Sam couldn't stand to tell his sister that, and maybe, just _maybe _Cas had been wrong. Maybe he _would_ be back.

Alex didn't do anything for a second, just looked oddly at the tie in Sam's hand before she reached out and took it slowly, carefully. She looked like she was remembering something, like she was dazed. She seemed confused now and unsure. But at least she was breathing normally and not about to have a breakdown.

"You okay?" Sam asked, appraising her carefully. "Wanna stand up?"

Alex stared at the blue tie in her hand, realized Sam had asked her a question. She shook her head very slowly, avoiding Sam's gaze. "Just… give me a few minutes?" She felt him hesitate. "I'll... be out in a few," she said faintly. "I'm okay."

Sam obviously didn't like it, but he respected her request and nodded, gave her arm an affectionate, supportive squeeze and stood up, left the bathroom with a couple of reluctant backward glances.

The room became silent except for the _drip drip _of the leaking faucet. Alex ran her thumb over the texture of the tie slowly. She thought back to yesterday afternoon in Bobby's attic.

_She was decent again—wearing her underwear and her tank top once more, covered enough that she didn't feel awkward. Castiel sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her as he put his socks and shoes back on—he was wearing his pants again but was shirtless, and Alex was studying his back carefully. The tattoo of the cross that had been across his shoulder blade was gone completely—had she imagined it? She swore she remembered seeing it when she'd met Jimmy Novak—that the guy had even told her something about it being some college-era tattoo he'd regretted. So why wasn't it there anymore?_

_Finally, Alex asked Cas about it. He hesitated, thoughtful, then told her he hadn't liked the tattoo personally, that he'd removed it some time ago. She was surprised. _He really is claiming this body as his own, _she thought. She'd looked at him quietly, watched him pull his shirt back on from the side of her eyes, never over the fact that she got to see him like that. She had gotten a little flustered and busied herself by picking up his tie from off of the floor beside the bed, and that's when she saw that Cas had put his shoes onto the wrong feet. He was just too cute._

_He'd been confused at her sudden outburst of giggling laughter, and she'd pointed out that the shoes were on the wrong feet. Castiel commented that the shoes looked so alike, it was hard to tell… and she watched him fix his mistake, watched him switch the shoes and then tie those crappy little lopsided bows he tied. And she didn't want him to ever tie knots differently than he did—she loved the strange, clueless way he did things. _

_While Cas buttoned his shirt back up, Alex had jokingly held his tie against herself and asked if it looked good on her. He'd paused his work and had seemed to be puzzled at her question, telling her that he didn't think women wore ties, traditionally. He'd said it with wide eyes and a just-trying-to-be-helpful expression that unexpectedly melted her heart. _

_Alex put his tie back on him carefully once he was done buttoning his shirt. She knotted the tie neatly for him, but made sure it was backwards, just like he always wore it. It was somehow one of her favorite things about him, that damn tie, and she told him as much. He'd just looked at her quietly, his gaze thorough. And she'd felt like he could see everything about her. _

She held onto the tie tightly now—this remaining piece of fabric was more than clothing, it was a part of Cas, and that thought ripped open the painful tear in her heart even further—he'd slipped out of her grasp, she didn't know where he was or if he was even alive.

Sam and Dean didn't think he was coming back. Even though they weren't saying it, she saw it clearly on their faces.

Alex could barely even begin to think about how to feel—she wanted to fall away from herself, be somewhere else, to be some_one_ else. She felt _nothing_, she felt _everything_, she was suddenly alone in a way she'd never been alone before. There was this emptiness, this utter fear and dread in the pit of her stomach, making her sick all over.

She hated herself for the uncontrollable panic she was fighting, she hated herself for being so afraid that he was _never coming back_.

* * *

**Nothing, Arizona**

"Are you coming?" Dean asked, and Alex looked up, confused. The car they'd stolen—a Ford Explorer—was parked, she was the only one in the SUV—where were Sam and Adam? Dean had opened her door for her and he was looking at her in expectancy and slight concern.

"Coming where?" she asked, feeling dazed.

He looked at her, his concern deepening. "…inside?"

Inside _where_? She leaned her head to the side, looked around—where were they? It looked like the middle of the desert—they were parked beside some ramshackle highway shop that looked like it'd been chewed up and spit out. She saw Sam waiting a little ways off in the middle of the parking lot with his hands in his pockets. Adam had his arms crossed. They were both squinting in the bright noonday sun.

"Weren't you listening when I was on the phone with Bobby a couple hours back?" Dean asked, and at her silence, he spoke like he was repeating himself. "We're gonna see about some mystic guru chick out here…? Name of Aura...? She was on the way back to Bobby's...? Figured it was worth a shot...?" He paused. "Any of that ring a bell?" He looked at her weirdly when she said nothing. She instead just frowned, distracted and bewildered. "You_ seriously_ don't remember me telling you this a few hours ago?" Dean asked dubiously.

She tried to think back, but her memories of the day so far seemed inaccessible and dreamlike, she couldn't put the details together and she didn't want to, it took too much energy and she just made a faint and dejected little groaning sound, looked down and shook her head.

Dean was silent for a minute, then when he spoke again, it was softer, apprehensive. "Al... you're really starting to worry me. You okay?"

Alex looked at her oldest brother and wanted to feel the passion of anger she'd had for him just a few hours ago—the hatred she'd felt for his choices, his actions toward her. But now, so sad and scared, she instead just looked away, feeling nothing about Dean, _nothing_. Possible responses all filtered across her mind but none of them sounded right and she was too tired to speak.

Her brother looked at her for a long moment, then stood back a little, making room for her to get out and stand. "Get out of the car, can you?" he asked, and Alex guessed she could and vacantly swung her legs over the side of the seat, out onto the ground below and she got up and out. Her limbs felt odd and she wondered briefly if she were in mild physical shock. She was light-headed and her pulse was fast, unpleasantly so.

"_Look_," Dean's voice said beside her somewhere, and he sounded heartfelt, kind, slightly pleading. His hand touched the back of her arm hesitantly, gently. He said something like _don't give up, I raised you better than that. _Listening was hard right now, too. She could barely focus, but she told him _okay_.

He said something else but it seemed muffled, she couldn't hear anything but the word _sorry_ very well.

"Okay?" he asked gently, and she was lost. What?

She just nodded, repeated herself, said "okay."

And Dean looked at her a minute longer, not convinced she was okay, but then he let it go, motioned for her to go with him. She did, just put one foot in front of the other, went through the motions, tried really hard to focus, to get out of the weird fog she was in.

Adam watched Dean and Alex come toward where he and Sam waited. Something was _wrong _with her and it was obvious. She seemed shellshocked ever since that trench coat guy had disappeared. The way she was acting, you'd think he'd died. Maybe he had.

"Shall we?" Dean asked gruffly, and led the rest of the way across the cracked, weed-choked parking lot.

Adam had high hopes for what they were about to do—meet some sort of psychic lady who, according to the Bobby guy, might know something that could help with the Winchester's efforts to stop the apocalypse. It sounded cool, a psychic. But what Adam wasn't sure about was _why _Dean and Sam were so dead set on stopping Michael's apparent mission to kill the devil.

It seemed like killing the devil, once and for all, would be a_ good _thing, right? The world was full of billions of people, and, you know, if a couple million had to die so that Satan was gone forever… it wasn't the _best_ trade, no, but _still._ It was the devil. You'd expect there to be a little fallout.

Adam glanced up at the billboard that loomed over the parking lot they were in—it said _NOTHING_ in block letters, and it was sort of eerie, really. This seemed like a weird place to find answers. It was out in the middle of the Mojave desert, along Highway 93, which was just one endless, flat, straight highway with desert on either side. There was nothing and no one for miles. This little "town" of Nothing was named well. The only building there was one low, flat building with a sign in front of it, hand painted, that said _ALL MART_. A bunch of junk was piled next to the low, flat yellow building they were walking towards. The side of the building had been messily painted by hand and advertised "crystals - divination - herbs and remedies - incense - specialty tea - spiritual supplies."

"Oh good, _spiritual supplies_," Dean commented, pulling the dirty glass door open. A bell jingled as they walked in.

Inside the little shop it was dim and musty, smelled like a vitamin shop, and Adam didn't like it. A woman who looked to be of middle eastern descent was sitting behind a counter and she seemed surprised to see them, looking up at them from a teacup she'd been studying. She had graying hair braided straight down her back, she was wearing a wildly patterned, colorful dress, she had many jingling bracelets stacked on her wrists. A red third eye was pressed into the space just above the gap in her eyebrows. She set her teacup down and rose to meet them. Adam could see that the cup had no tea in it, just a bunch of… brown stuff.

Hanging back, Adam squinted. "What was she doing?" he asked Alex in a low whisper. His half-sister seemed far away mentally, but when he asked her that, she came back, at least for a minute.

"Uh…" Alex looked, craned her neck, and she muttered her reply quietly. "She was reading tea leaves—a.k.a. crazy stuff." And Alex once again fell into glazed over silence, staring ahead with a vaguely sick expression on her face. Adam gawked around at the dinky little store while Sam and Dean approached the woman behind the counter.

"Are you… Aura?" Sam asked.

"Oh no. I'm Rosemary." She looked at them both carefully, a little suspiciously. "Aura is my daughter. Have you come seeking her divine truths?"

"Uh yeah," Dean said, trying a smile, coming across as facetious. "That."

"Hmm." Rosemary paused heavily, sounding reluctant, looking at the four of them skeptically. "Let me see if she's accepting inquiries today."

"_Accepting inquiries_?" Dean repeated incredulously, his sharp tone drawing a slight frown from the shopkeeper.

"We'll wait here," Sam said, attempting a crooked, charming smile, trying to smooth over the rude moment Dean had just created. With another skeptical glance, Rosemary disappeared into beaded curtain that hung in the doorway behind the counter. Sam gave Dean a look, to which Dean huffed impatiently, turned around, looked at the little shop skeptically.

"Look at all this new agey crap," he muttered. "Crystals, incense, psychic powders? How's this place stay afloat way out here in nowhere land? Who _buys_ this stuff?"

"No one," Alex said, and she held up her index finger, which was gray. "Everything is dusty. Everything."

"Hmm," Sam looked around, his eyes narrowing steeply. "Interesting..."

Alex looked at her finger oddly, wiped it on her jeans, drew a breath and let it out heavily, then leaned her hand against a free space on the wall, giving the impression of extreme fatigue. Adam saw how Dean looked at her and grew clearly distressed, looked away, began tapping the counter impatiently. "Dude this is a bust lead," the oldest Winchester muttered. "I can already feel it."

Sam picked up a little jar labeled _vervain_ and squinted at it. "Bobby seemed to think this girl might know something, Dean, give it a chance."

They waited for about five full minutes, and Dean grew more and more impatient, casting hooded glances at his sister and brother, not really paying any attention to Adam, who contented himself to poke around the weird shop.

Rosemary finally reappeared alone. "I am sorry to keep you waiting," the woman apologized. "Aura says she's not taking visitors today."

"_Not taking visitors_?" Dean repeated in what seemed to be offended disbelief.

"I'm sorry, perhaps tomorrow," Rosemary said firmly.

"We're here_ today_." Dean said, poking an index finger down onto the worn out countertop for emphasis.

Rosemary shook her head. "I'm sorry."

Dean looked like he were gathering himself up, about to blast the lady and let her have it—and then the beaded curtain stirred, out came a very young woman, perhaps just out of her teenage years. "It's all right, Rosemary," she said, and her voice was soft, raspy. She looked at the Winchesters curiously, and they stared back at her almost gawkingly.

She was clearly Rosemary's daughter, they had similar features, but Aura seemed wild and strange on a whole new level. She had long and untamed black hair, deeply tan skin, and vivid sky-blue powder was lined underneath her eyes, and it was so thick that it looked like she'd put it there with her fingers. Her arms were smudged with bright powders—magenta, saffron, violet—it looked like she had been painting on herself. There were beads scattered throughout her hair, a headband stretched across her forehead, her clothes were colorful and unusual: an Indian sari over some flowing, batik patterned pants. She was barefoot and wore bracelets stacked on her wrists just like her mother. Aura was striking and beautiful, but almost plain at the same time, her nose was large and upturned, her eyes too big for her heart-shaped face. Her steady gaze locked onto Dean. "No."

"Uh… what?" he asked, confused.

She was serene, her hands folded together in front of her as she came forward into the shop, stood at the side of the counter. "I said, no—I don't have the answers you seek. You have my apologies."

A little thrown off guard, Dean looked like he was trying to figure out what had just happened. "Lady, I didn't even _ask_ you anything yet."

She shrugged just slightly. "And you don't need to." She looked at Adam with a note of puzzled curiosity on her exotic features. "I wasn't expecting to see _you_ here."

Adam was confused, not even sure she was speaking to him. "Do I know you?" he asked. She said nothing, just looked at him with an unreadable expression—pleasant, but jarring and deeply knowing. Adam felt really strange all of the sudden, and didn't know if he liked being here right now. Beside him now, Alex seemed more like herself, or more like the self she'd been when they'd been trapped in the beautiful room together. She was standing in front of Adam slightly, and Adam suddenly wondered if she was being protective of him. He didn't need protecting, and he crossed his arms, moved so that he stood beside Alex, equal to her.

Dean looked at Sam, officially weirded out, maybe silently asking for assistance. Sam cleared his throat, looking a little hesitant. "Aura? We came here to see if you can help us." Always the polite one, Sam introduced everyone. "I'm Sam. This is my brother Dean, my brother Adam… my sister Alex."

"I know who all of you are, of course," Aura said simply, further confusing everyone, but she was smiling faintly, as if nothing were strange about her reply at all. She waited for one of them to speak, and while everyone else was growing uncomfortable, she remained completely tranquil.

Sam faltered. "Then you know… about the apocalypse." He looked at her uncertainly.

Aura inclined her head just slightly, half a nod. "Yes. And I know you seek to kill Lucifer."

All four of them were visibly taken aback by her apparent knowledge of what they were there to ask her about. "How... do you know that?" Alex asked.

Aura was silent for a long moment, looking at each of them slowly, poised and graceful, and it was strange, the way she commanded the interaction, how her silences did not allow for interruption. Even Dean said nothing. Finally she spoke, but ignored Alex's question. "It's impossible to destroy good _or _evil, they will both always exist…" She looked at Sam now. "What makes you think that you—or anyone—can kill Lucifer, the embodiment of evil?" She asked it simply and with a surprising touch of innocent curiosity, as if she really wanted to know what he would say.

Sam was startled, he cast a quick glance at Dean then looked back at her, wet his lips, shrugged. "I mean… other angels can die, so why not him?"

Her eyes drifted off in thought. "Interesting question," she replied vaguely, eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly as her expression grew thoughtful.

Dean and Sam looked at each other sidelong again, silently arguing about who was going to continue the conversation with the crazy girl. "So can we kill the devil or _not_?" Dean asked when Sam wouldn't say anything else.

Aura leveled Dean with another contented gaze. "Not quite," she answered cryptically. "But there's something else. Another way."

Finally, some answers. Dean grew a little more urgent. "What is it?"

She hesitated. "You'll find out soon," she said, then tilted her head to the side, looking down and shrugging ever so slightly. "But… not from me."

"Why not?" Dean asked, straining to keep his tone polite. His impatience came through strongly.

Her dark eyes flicked back up to his and she straightened. "It's not time yet. I'm not the one who is supposed to tell you."

"You got to be kidding me," Dean said. "Are you just yanking my chain right now?" He became demanding. "Tell us what you know—a lot of lives are at stake here."

"How true that is," she replied, and she seemed briefly saddened. She looked at Sam, then Adam, then Alex, then back at Dean. "More than you know."

Dean faltered, lost a little bit of his nerve. "W-what's that supposed to mean?"

"I've seen the future," was her reply.

Dean's expression grew mildly suspicious. "What, you some kind of prophet?"

Unfazed, unaffected, she merely blinked once. "Some have said that I am."

Dean's jaw clenched tight, he was getting impatient. "Look... it's kind of important that you tell us anything you know."

She was unruffled by his intensifying tone and glare. "I already told you no," she told him, matter-of-fact. "My answer remains the same." She saw the unpleasant expression on Dean's face. She regarded him with a small smile and mild sympathy. "_Patience_," she told him measuredly. "Everything will be revealed to you as it should be,_ when_ it should be."

Dean was practically seething, but seemed to get that there was no use pushing. "Okay you know what, Miss Cleo? Thanks for nothing. I think we're done here." Dean looked around at his siblings darkly, then brushed past Sam, headed for the exit.

"Just know that the way it will happen is the way that it _has _to happen," Aura said, and her tone suddenly held a startling note of warning and caution, sympathy. "None of you is to blame for what will happen. This is just... the way it has to be."

Dean stopped, looked back at her with an intense frown, then rounded, came back a couple steps. "What are you talking about?"

Her eyes snapped to his but she said nothing, then she turned to leave, but looked back at them over her shoulder before she disappeared through the beaded curtain. "Be careful on the highway as you travel. Dark spirits haunt the deserts here." Aura looked at Alex cryptically. "Until next time." Her eyes darted to Adam. "Goodbye." And she left.

Rosemary, who they had all forgotten about, indicated a jar of candy bars that looked like they had been sitting for years. "For the road?" she asked. "Twenty-five cents." Dean rolled his eyes and walked out.

"Uh, no, but thank you," Sam answered politely, and gestured for Alex and Adam to follow after Dean.

Back out in the blinding sun, Adam heard Dean, ahead, muttering "Well _that_ was a waste of time," as he yanked open the driver's side door and got in.

The rest of them piled in, too, as Dean stuck the keys into the ignition. "Dude, that chick gave me the heebie jeebies," he complained, starting the car. "Bunch of mumbo jumbo crap." He shifted into gear. "I need a shower. I think some of her hippie got on me."

Adam felt disillusioned and more than a little creeped out, glad to be leaving, feeling less sure of what was going on than before. He felt out of place, more than he ever had in his entire life, and he was trying not to feel that way. He was all to aware that these people—Dean, Sam, Alex—were the only living relatives he had left.

The desert passed by outside as Dean drove them away from the town of Nothing. Adam looked over at Alex, who had her hand in her jacket pocket. He could see a piece of a blue tie sticking out. She was holding onto it in without seeming to realize as she stared at the back of the seat in front of her blindly. Apparently that guy, Cas, had been a big deal to her. The minute Alex had found out about him disappearing, she'd done a one-eighty. He wondered what happened to the badass chick who had kicked his ass and mouthed off to Zachariah.

He thought about how he knew how hard it was to lose someone, and realized he got it actually. He missed his mom _so much_. Adam's thoughts wandered, his heart sunk a little bit when he thought of her, how much he wanted to see her. Just one more time. She was the only person in the world he felt like he could be himself with.

* * *

**About 12 Hours Later**

**Grand Junction, Colorado**

Adam woke up suddenly, and for the briefest moment, he didn't remember where he was, all he knew was that he was in darkness… and then his eyes adjusted, he could see his surroundings, hear the sounds of his siblings breathing—was that Sam snoring softly? Adam remembered the day of nonstop driving, about nine hours of it, then crashing at this motel. It had been a weird, tense day overall, exhausting even though they'd done pretty much nothing but drive. Alex and Sam were asleep back to back on the bed next to Adam, Dean was on the floor with a pillow. Adam stared at the ceiling, feeling a gnawing sense of discontentment. It had been strange, when the angels told him that the family he'd never met, his dad's other kids, weren't to be trusted. But they'd been angels, so he'd believed them.

He'd been brought back to life and then the siblings he'd never known had in turn told him _angels_ weren't to be trusted. And even though that theory had been proven—Zachariah was a frigging_ asshole_—Adam didn't feel like he thought he should about Dean, Sam, and Alex. He felt their side glances and knew they didn't trust him. That they felt as weird about him being there as he did.

John Winchester had shown up when Adam was twelve, and it had been, in a word, shocking. Adam had felt odd about this man suddenly showing up and expressing interest in being part of his life. He'd seemed nice enough, had taken Adam to some baseball games, spent time with him. But John didn't even tell him about his other kids until the third or fourth time Adam saw him when he was thirteen. Learning that he had two brothers and a sister had been strange. He'd imagined them a lot ever since John told him. Dean, Sam, Alex... they weren't what he had expected. He wasn't sure _what _he'd expected, really, but they were different than what he'd thought. Not better or worse, just different.

Restless, Adam got up quietly and went to the window. Weird, he thought he remembered there being heavy blinds across the window. The glass pane was large and uncovered, he could see out into the parking lot really well. Someone was walking by on the sidewalk—and then light from headlights passing on the adjacent road lit her up briefly and Adam's stomach dropped. _Mom?!_

Without a second thought, he rushed out of the motel, not even closing the door behind himself—she was a few feet away, her back to him as she walked away. "Mom!" he cried out, and she turned around, frowning. He could see really well now, the moon was oddly bright.

"Adam?" She asked, dawning surprise in her voice. "_Adam_!"

He rushed to her, overwhelmed by disbelief. He had never hugged anyone so tightly in his life—she hugged him back, but it was sort of weak, was she all right? He pulled back urgently, looking at her carefully. "Mom, are you okay? How—how are you here? Did the angels—" he felt himself go cold with realization and fear, his jubilation was gone as he realized this had to be something bad. "The angels."

"Yes, the angels!" came a familiar voice, and Adam whirled, holding his arm out in front of his mom instinctually, protectively. He was deeply afraid when he recognized the owner of the voice.

"Zachariah," he growled, his veins hammering in hatred.

"The one and only!" The angel said proudly, chuckling as he approached, swaggering almost. "Did you _really_ think you could get away from me, kiddo?" Zachariah asked, amused. "I mean, I wasn't done with you." He stopped, a few feet off. "You and your bitch sister really shouldn't have done what you did," he scolded, still acting like it was all a huge, funny joke to him. "Do you have any idea how much it hurts to be blasted away to the four corners of the earth?"

Adam felt an overwhelming sense of dread, like Zachariah was getting to a violent, vengeful punchline. "Look, I don't know what you want or what's happening, but you leave my mom _out _of it," Adam said acidly, trying to be brave and threatening, but he was scared. He glanced toward the motel room, praying that one of his sleeping siblings inside would wake up and see what was happening.

"Oh trust me," Zachariah said, seeing Adam's growing fear. "They're not coming to save you _this time_." His air of amusement was gone, and in its place was an eerie calm and focus. "No one can save you. Or your mom."

Adam suddenly found himself slammed to the ground without even being touched, hitting back-first, cracking his head on the pavement painfully. He was stuck, he couldn't get up, and he could see his mom suddenly picked up and thrown against the side of the motel, where she stuck as if glued—and she gagged and gasped, panicking as she began to cough up thick streams of blood.

"_Stop it _Zachariah!" Adam shouted, struggling to get up, but stuck as if all the gravity in the world weighed down on him. "Dean! Sam!" he screamed, and Zachariah had the nerve to laugh jovially.

Mom cried out in intense pain, and Adam could see her crying, begging—and it was just like when the ghouls had eaten them and everything inside of him said no, _no_! Don't let this happen to her _again_, help her,_ save her_!

"Please, _stop_!" Adam begged, fighting with everything he had, but remaining stuck. "_Mom_!" he sobbed.

"I can do this all day!" Zachariah said gleefully, and Adam's mom gave another shuddering cry of pain as she coughed out bright red blood.

"Zachariah!" Came a startling, firm, authoritative voice, and everyone looked to see a young, dark-haired man standing where, a moment ago, there had been no one.

"Michael!" Zachariah exclaimed, fear filtering over his features. He shrunk back a step. "I was just—it's not what it looks like!"

Adam looked at the newcomer in confusion—_Michael_?

"Let Kate Milligan go, Zachariah," Michael said, and there was deep command in the voice. "_Now_."

Zachariah complied, and Kate dropped away from the wall, fell to her hands and knees even as Adam discovered he was able to move again and scrambled over to her.

"You've disobeyed me for the last time, Zachariah," Michael said cooly. "I told you they were not to be harmed in _any way_."

"I know, _I know_, but I just—I got carried away, boss! It won't happen again!"

Michael's chin lowered just a little, a threatening effect. "You're right," he said, and Adam saw the silver blade suddenly slide down out of the long sleeve of Michael's jacket. "It won't."

Almost too fast to see, Michael plunged the blade into Zachariah's chest—and there was a flash of bright blue light, a deafening scream, and Zachariah exploded into light, then was gone completely.

Shocked, Adam helped his shaking mother up slowly, looked at Michael wordlessly. The archangel was pocketing his blade somberly. "I'm sorry Adam," he said, then looked at him fully. "I'm Michael. You may have heard of me." There was a slight smile.

Even though the guy had just saved their lives, Adam was suspicious. "Why do you look like my dad?" he asked.

Michael looked down at himself, straightened his jacket. "I'm... borrowing John Winchester's body from nineteen-seventy-nine," he explained. "It's temporary." Adam frowned. He didn't understand—something seemed off.

"What's going on, Adam?" Kate asked, confused. She sounded strange, her cadence was off. But Adam didn't think anything of it, thought it was the fear.

"Just let me handle this, Mom," Adam said, holding her tightly, scared to lose her. He stared down Michael intensely. "Zachariah told me he was working for you," Adam said. "He lied about _everything_. Used me to try and get to Dean."

Michael's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Zachariah does do that. Lie." He paused. "He's not to be trusted. But I'm sure you've figured that out by now. And… clearly, he won't be a problem anymore." Michael's expression grew deeply serious and he came closer. "Adam, I'm weak. This isn't my true vessel, and I'm running out of time. Lucifer is close to obtaining his vessel, did the Winchesters tell you that?"

Adam's mistrustful frown deepened. "No…"

Michael nodded slightly. "Of course not. They didn't tell you Sam is Lucifer's vessel, either, I'm sure."

Adam's eyebrows shot up. "What?"

"Hmm,," Michael made a soft, thoughtful sound, seeming to be sympathetic. "They welcome you to the family and yet you know, you can_ feel _it… you're not a part of their family and you never will be. Your mother. _She's_ your family."

Adam looked at his mom briefly as Michael continued. "You were meant for greater things Adam. Brave things, world-changing things." Michael smiled now, his eyes softening, and Adam was stilled, remembering the same look on the same face, only when it had been about twenty years older. "You're not a side character," Michael continued. "You're not the little half-brother. You're important. To me."

"What do you mean?" Adam asked, hesitating, not sure where this was going.

Michael took in a deep breath, thought a moment. "I'm looking for someone who isn't going to let foolish, selfish pride get in the way of this opportunity. Adam, think it over. Together, you and I can kill Satan. If we don't, he'll damage this world beyond repair. I _need _you."

Adam was beginning to understand, but he was even more confused now than ever. "I thought _Dean_ was supposed to be the vessel."

"He was," Michael said. "But it seems he's not the man I believed him to be. And as I said before, this vessel I'm in… temporary. You're the only option left. My last hope."

Adam stared, speechless, and Michael looked at him openly. "You saw them. Your brothers. They're falling apart. It's only a matter of time before Sam says yes. And when he takes his vessel, when the embodiment of true evil walks this earth… someone needs to be there to stop him. He'll kill everyone, Adam. Lucifer despises humanity. We can save people. Your mother. We can save her."

Adam tightened his arms around his mom, and Michael's voice lowered. "All you have to do is one very simple thing. Say yes. And I take care of the rest. I defeat the devil, with your help. Afterward, I return to heaven, you return to your life. Your mom is safe, happy, alive. You both get a second chance. I'll even bring back your dad. If you want."

Adam swallowed, heart beating fast, mind whirling. Michael seemed so different than Zachariah: steadfast, noble, _good_. "It comes down to this, Adam," Michael said softly. "Are you braver than Dean? Are you willing to see this for what it is? A chance to save the world?"

Adam looked at his mother, whose eyes searched his, then back at Michael, who waited patiently. "I'm not like whatever Dean has told you, Adam. I have the best interest of the world in mind. I hope you believe me."

Adam almost made a face. Dean hadn't told him _anything_ like Michael had assumed. Michael had told him more in two minutes than his family had told him all day. Adam thought about everything Michael had told him and felt purpose welling up inside of him, he felt how his mother was watching him expectantly. He pictured himself alive and happy, walking down a street, seeing people who were alive because of what he'd done, he pictured his mom picking flowers, laughing, full of life.

Michael was looking at him patiently. "So what will it be, Adam? Will you be the weapon which defeats the devil?"

And not realizing it had all been a huge trick—that Zachariah wasn't really dead, that the woman who looked like his mother was an illusion, that the entire situation he thought he was in right now was a _dream_ he was having, not reality at all—Adam fell hook line and sinker.

Believing he was being brave, believing he was acting selflessly and doing something that would save millions, Adam drew himself up to his full height and looked over to his mother, who wasn't even his mother. She smiled at him, and he felt renewed purpose. Courageous, he looked Michael in the eye, spoke with a clear, steady voice. "Yes." The last thing he would say as himself.

And with that single word, it was done.

They would tell stories about him in the future: The boy who died for the sins of an absent father. The boy who was brought back from the dead, drawn out of Heaven only to be pulled down into Hell. The boy whose only mistake was trusting in angels.

* * *

Adam was mumbling in his sleep—something like, _mom_, _no_... and Alex tried to listen, but it became incoherent. She couldn't catch any more words. She stopped paying attention, let his little protesting whines and mumbles fade out. She had a hand in her jacket pocket, where the tie stayed, and her fingers tightened around it. She took in a deep breath, let it out very slowly. She thought of Castiel and her heart swelled with so much pain. She felt blank and hollow and yet agonized completely, torn apart everywhere. Her eyes stared straight up at the ceiling and hot tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes and down the sides of her face. She gripped her phone tightly—it was in her other pocket. She wanted it to ring, for his voice to be on the other end. But it was silent as it had been all day.

Sam shifted a little—his back was to her. Alex could hear Dean's slightly wheezy sleep-breathing somewhere on the floor near their feet. Adam was mumbling every other twenty seconds. She was literally surrounded, but Alex didn't know if she'd ever felt so _lonely_. She felt like she'd lost everything. How the hell was she supposed to live feeling this way? She still couldn't even really grasp what had happened. She kept replaying finding Castiel's abandoned blade in the warehouse. Gone? _Gone?_

He couldn't be gone. And yet he was.

"_Michael_," she thought Adam muttered, and Alex turned her head fast. _Michael_? Adam had gone went silent, and she held her breath, listened hard. But Adam made no more sounds. She tried shutting her eyes, but couldn't keep them shut. She was wide awake, too_ tired _to be tired, which made no sense. She felt her chest constricting, hopelessness overpowering her.

Suddenly, she heard Adam speak loudly, clearly. "Yes."

Wha—her ears rang oddly then, and the ringing increased, suddenly blasting through the air piercingly, and even as Alex was clapping her hands over her ears, she saw that Adam glowed bright before the room was washed out completely in a blaze of light that was nearly blinding.

She heard Dean yelling, felt Sam moving, she was sitting up, felt Sam manhandling her sort of, she wasn't sure what was happening—he was pulling her to him tightly and pulling her away from the bed Adam had been in. The three of them stood there in darkness, breathless.

"Adam?" Dean looked around the room in a panic. "W-where did he go? What just happened?"

"He was… muttering about Michael." Alex said, and looked at both of her brothers, not sure what had just happened. "And then he said yes really loud." She looked at the bed blankly, numb. Sam's arms tightened around Alex almost painfully, like he thought if he had her good enough, the angels couldn't take her again, too.

"How did they find us?" he asked, and Dean shook his head, already springing into action.

"We're outta here, _now_, before more come back," Dean said, and Alex felt herself leaving the room, floating, dazed.

Next thing Alex consciously realized, she was in the back of the stolen car again and her brothers were talking in low, intense tones in the front seat. She didn't hear what they were saying. One by one, everyone in her life was disappearing. She looked out the window and streetlights flashed by, the overhead light flickering over her face at an unsteady rhythm as the car sped down the road in the dead of night. Her throat hurt painfully, an impossible lump there at the base of it. Her eyes flickered back and forth over the darkness outside.

_Where are you, Cas? Where are you?_

* * *

**Saint Bernard Parish Hospital**

**Chalmette, Louisana**

Nurse Katie Cooper looked up from the patient's chart, straightened her glasses, and scrutinized the John Doe patient who'd been admitted earlier that day. She'd heard a few of the other RNs talking about his mysterious circumstances—apparently this guy had been found on a shrimping boat off of Delacroix, bloody, unconscious, without ID and unresponsive. He'd been rushed in and was on life support now, showing close to no brain activity.

His face was messed up, he had a huge gash over his eyebrow; there was bad bruising along his jaw and the side of his temple. He looked like he'd been put through the ringer. Katie's co-workers had been talking about some kind of bizarre cuts on his stomach, and curious, Katie peeked, was stunned by the jaggedly carved up flesh that covered his chest and torso—_holy shit!_ Who would do this to the poor guy? Who would do this to _anyone_? The weird, bloody symbol etched into his skin wasn't one she recognized, but it looked distinctly occult to her. Was this some kind of creepy ritual murder attempt?

Just looking at him, he didn't _appear _like the kind of guy who would be involved in that kind of stuff. _Hmm._ Even though he was in a coma and his face was devoid of any expression whatsoever, he looked... nice. Katie put his chart back into the holder on the end of the bed, wondered what kind of trouble he'd gotten in to that had gotten him messed up like this. She wondered if he belonged to a gang, or maybe a cult, or perhaps some weird religious group.

His personal effects were in a clear plastic box beside the bed, and curious, Katie looked through them. She saw a box cutter, a ruined cell phone, a couple coins, a lone silver whistle. There were some photographs, too, three of them. They were water stained, distorted, wrinkled, creased from being folded, they were hard to make out. But right away, Katie could tell from their abysmal quality that they had been printed from a cell phone camera. She picked up the first two, which were stapled together, side by side… _weird_... the pictures were of two guys in their late twenties or early thirties. The picture on the left was of a guy glaring sullenly into the camera like he didn't want his picture taken—the picture on the right was another guy with longer hair, his mouth open and a forkful of food hovering halfway inside, his eyes half-shut as he blinked. Why would someone carry these two pictures around with them?

Katie set down the pictures and picked up the third photo. It wasn't stapled with the other ones—and it was more wrinkled and creased than the one of the men, like maybe it had been handled more. The picture showed a dark-haired girl in maybe her mid twenties looking into the camera with a surprised, deer-in-the-headlights expression. Katie glanced at the patient's face. _Hmm._ More than ever, she wondered what his story was. Who these people in the pictures were.

"_Katie_—" the sound of a male voice startled the nurse, who turned, caught, to see Doctor Griffin looking at her scoldingly. "How many times do I have to tell you not to go through the patient's person effects? I need you to come see to Mrs. Tucker, she's overdue for a dressing change."

"Sorry, Doc," Katie said, and she hurriedly stuck the picture back into the box, embarrassed that she'd been caught again. "On my way."

She glanced back one more time at the man in the coma. She hoped that someone was out there looking for him.

* * *

**Four Weeks Later**

**Muncie, Indiana**

The rain beat down hard and fast in sheets, making it almost impossible for Dean to see the road ahead. He had slowed the Impala to an agonizing crawl, he had the wipers going as fast as they would. A few miles back they'd been detoured off of I-90 and the county road wasn't lined with street lamps like the freeway had been. "_Damn_," he commented as rain continued to pummel the car noisily. "Is it just me or does this little rainstorm say 'sign of the times' to you?"

Sam glanced Dean's way briefly, tense. "Yeah."

There was a short silence. "She still sleeping?" Dean asked. He didn't want to chance taking his eyes off the road to check on her himself.

Sam turned around, craning his neck to look at their sister. She was leaned into the side of the car, her hands crammed into her jacket pockets, one of her shoulders bent up awkwardly as a makeshift pillow underneath the side of her head. Even though she was asleep, her eyebrows were drawn together slightly—she was resting, but not peacefully. "Yeah, still sleeping," Sam said, turning forward again, heaving a tired sigh.

"Good," Dean said, then chanced a quick sidelong glance at his very tired-out looking brother. "Should probably get some shut eye yourself, Sammy. You've barely slept at all the past few days."

"Yeah I know," Sam said wearily. Dean could tell he was really worried about something. He didn't have to wonder too much about what—take your pick, pretty much. Sam was silent for a couple more seconds, then let out a frustrated little huff. "What are we gonna do, Dean? We can't keep going like this."

"Sure we can, as long as I get nearly lethal amounts of caffeine every few hours," Dean said jokingly, and Sam gave an exasperated sound.

"That's not what I _meant_." He paused, and his voice dropped lower, the concern grew more pronounced. "I'm worried about her, Dean. Like, really worried."

Dean was sobered by his brother's statement. Sam had a way of doing that to Dean—cutting through to the issues and undermining his ability to act like everything was fine. And nodding, grim now, Dean let a heavy, troubled sigh escape. "Yeah. Me too."

The brothers fell into a tense silence.

It had been a horrible month. First, Adam came back, then he was stolen away after apparently saying yes to Michael. It made no sense. It made them all deeply uneasy, and to Dean, it was yet another person he'd let down. He regretted so much how little he'd spoken to Adam the two days he'd been alive. He knew Sam felt the same. Maybe they could have stopped that from happening. Talk about a guilt trip.

The three of them had searched for answers this past month, traveling nonstop, trying to find anything that would help them figure out a way to gank the devil. The whole hippie chick Aura thing had pretty much set the standard for what they discovered: a whole lot of jack squat. It was discouraging, to say the least.

Cas was still missing and at this point, Dean was pretty sure that meant he was dead. They didn't talk about it, not really. Especially not around Alex.

Their sister was the worst part about this past month. She hadn't been herself ever since Van Nuys—she was struggling and fatigued, barely able to sleep, barely able to eat. She had grown eerily withdrawn and quiet, she hardly said a thing, and when she did, she mumbled or said one, maybe two words. She wasn't _there_, she was doing crazy stuff like almost getting hit when she crossed the street yesterday—Dean had grabbed her hard, yanked her back, saving her life. She'd been confused, shaken up. He'd caught her wandering out of the motels they'd stayed in at odd hours of the night and just sitting on the Impala, not wearing a jacket. Other nights, Dean had woken up to find her awake and staring out the window.

He knew it was because of Cas and he had no idea what to do, what to tell her, how to react. He felt bad. Seeing Alex the way she was was like watching a half-crazed grieving widow or something, and Dean regretted his heartlessness to them, even though he still didn't think the relationship was the best idea in the world—but from the way his sister was acting now, he knew that she really… he could barely bring himself to even think it… _loved _Cas. And _damn _if that hadn't been something powerful that had driven Castiel to sacrifice himself like that. Dean couldn't call it love because he didn't think angels were capable of emotions and love like humans were but… it was close, that was for sure.

Mostly, they avoided the subject of Cas like it was the plague. But honestly, pretending the dude was coming back was what Dean wanted to do, for all their sakes. He couldn't live with himself if Cas really had died for them back there after the shit they put him through—especially Dean. But it had been four weeks. And every day he felt less and less hope that they'd ever see the angel again.

Every time Dean looked at Alex, he saw his baby sister begging him _help me_. And he didn't know _how_. He wasn't a shrink or a therapist or anything... he was just her idiot big brother. She deserved so much better than him. Dean was running himself ragged trying to take care of his family and was doing a shit job, he hated himself for everything he'd done lately, but he was trying harder than ever to be a good big brother.

He had a thousand worries… the apocalypse, Dad's warning about Azazel, Sam's increasing depression, Alex's delicate state, Cas's disappearance, Lisa, Ben… he was under impossible pressure from all sides, he was struggling, he was feeling half insane some days. Of course, he buried it all deep down under sarcasm and jokes and his "who gives a fuck" attitude.

But he was reaching a breaking point. And maybe the biggest thing that had to change soon was Alex. He couldn't deal with much more of of his sister's crazy behavior, not now. It was too much on top of everything else, he couldn't be everywhere at once, and he was deeply worried about her. And after she was almost hit by that car yesterday… after he almost missed grabbing her by the space of a second—he'd lost it, let her have it, chewed her out, given her an ultimatum.

"Hey, so," Dean glanced at his brother again, cleared his throat, brought it up, trying to feel his brother out for possible solutions to how to deal with it. "I meant what I said to her yesterday, Sam. If she keeps up this crap she's been pulling… if she almost gets herself killed again, I'll take her to Bobby's, no questions asked."

Sam frowned at Dean. "What, dump her off somewhere? Dean she needs us right now."

Dean shook his head a little, explained. "What she _needs_ is to get herself together, Sam. I'm not trying to be a dick but… you saw what happened yesterday, right?"

Sam was silent and pensive, brooding.

"Besides," Dean said. "I was thinking it might be better for her to stay in one place awhile. You know, rest up, get her mind off… all this."

"Divide up _now_, after everything?" Sam sounded really unsure. "Do you_ really_ think that would be best?"

Dean let out a heavy sigh. "I don't know what's best, Sammy. I got no clue."

"I think the last thing she needs right now is to be alone," Sam said quietly.

There was a long silence.

Sam spoke again, but in a hushed tone. "Do you really think he's coming back, Dean?" Dean stared straight ahead, his outlook bleak. He didn't answer for a long moment. "You were there. _He_ didn't think he was coming back."

"So why do we keep telling her that we're gonna find him?" Sam asked. "I don't think she believes it Dean." He expelled a heavy breath wearily. "I don't think _I _do either."

"Yeah, well," Dean tried to say it out loud so that he could believe it, too. "I haven't given up hope."

Sam sat back, confused, thinking, then looked at Dean almost accusingly. "I don't get it. He was here and you couldn't wait to get rid of him and now you're hoping he comes _back_?"

Dean's mouth was in a hard line. "It's complicated, okay?" he asked, then cut the subject short with a cranky comment as the rain beat down even harder than before. "This storm is friggin' ridiculous. _Come on_!"

Ahead, he could see a glowing sign, and whatever it was, Dean had already decided he was pulling in. This rain was getting dangerous, plus he was going about ten miles an hour. Was it a gas station? Store? Even better. "_Yes_, motel," Dean said mostly to himself, pulling into the parking lot as he recognized the structure. "No wait—_ho_tel! Nice."

Sam protested. "Dean, we shouldn't stop."

Pulling into a parking space, Dean gave him a crazy look. "What, you wanna wash away with the flood? No thanks." He squinted through the watery, distorted windshield. "Looks nice, too."

Sam looked perturbed, but Dean ignored him, turned around in his seat, stretching backwards, shaking his sister by the shoulder. "Hey! Sleeping beauty! Wake up."

She started awake, disoriented for a second, and then she saw him, looked at him grumpily, silently, groggy. Dean tried not to show how he really felt—sad as hell—because her silence these days was like all those years ago when she'd been mute. He always had to take two steps ahead back then, guess what she was thinking, because she wasn't saying. Today was the same, and he tried to cheer her up. "I know, I know. I suck," he said jokingly. No response, she just rubbed an eye with the heel of her hand. "You can go back to sleep once we're inside, okay?" She glanced at him, then squinted out of her window peevishly. Dean could see how much she needed the sleep he'd just woken her from. Sam glanced sidelong at Dean in mild disapproval, unhappy about stopping.

One big, happy family, Dean thought cynically as he turned back around to face forward. He briefly looked into the rearview mirror and saw Alex glancing discreetly at her cell phone. He knew she was checking it for missed calls. She did that constantly now, and Dean didn't have the heart to tell her she should probably stop checking… that Cas probably wasn't coming back, that she shouldn't expect a call.

_No. Not yet._ He wasn't going to give up hope on that just yet—he refused. He cleared his throat and peered up at the hotel sign. _The Elysian Fields Hotel._ The place looked really ritzy, like they might have a kickass buffet inside. He was starving. He looked at the main entryway—it was close, but they would probably get soaked running through the downpour.

He cracked a crooked grin at his siblings, trying to get them to lighten up, cheer up. "Now or never, chumps," Dean said, and grabbed the door handle, preparing to get very, very soaked.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ You guys know what this means, right? HAMMER OF THE GODS… Gabriel… Lucifer… muahahah… _

_This chapter…. hurt me. Adam feels… Alex being sad… Cas's pocket contents GUH KILL ME OK ;((((((( I miss Calex… I cannot stand for them to be apart… *CRIES A LOT*_

_Leave a review if you are rocking back and forth in pain, too. _


	39. House of Gods

**Song Remains the Same**

Chapter 39 / House of Gods

"_All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, giving them the power to pull ours."  
_- Aldous Huxley

* * *

Three dripping-wet Winchesters burst into the hotel lobby, catching their breath as they came in out of the pouring rain. As soon as they were inside, they could see that the place was nice. No, scratch that, it wasn't just nice—it was downright _swanky_. The lobby was sleek and modern, artfully lit—a stone fireplace was roaring across from the front desk. Fluffy white area rugs stood out against the expensive looking hardwood floor, the lounge area looked like it was straight out of an Ikea catalogue. There was a full-service bar across from the check-in counter, and beside it there was a sign that said "_Pool & Gym This Way."_

Dean made an impressed face, hardly believing their luck. "_Wow_... nice digs for once."

He looked at his siblings who both appeared to be thrown off by _how_ nice.

Lounge music played softly, there were a lot of people milling around. Apparently the storm had drawn a crowd. Dean hefted his bag a little better and then led the way to the desk where the attendant glanced up at them and gave them a quick smile.

"Checking in?" he asked. He was a small, pale man with dark hair swept neatly into a side part.

"Yeah," Dean said, leaning a wet elbow onto the counter.

"Just a moment," the attendant—Chet according to his name tag—said. He typed rapidly on the keyboard of his computer, and Dean looked around again, unable to believe how great this place was. Also, how full of people.

"Busy night huh?" he asked.

"Any port in a storm, I guess," Chet said, chuckling pleasantly as he slid some paperwork over to Dean. "If you could just fill this out, please."

"Yeah." Dean took the form, started on it, filled in total lies. Name? _Fred Gwynne_. Address? _1313 Mockingbird Lane_. Beside him, he heard Sam give one of those little huffs and he knew what his brother was thinking:_ grow up, Dean. _

Dean slid the paperwork back across the counter with some cash, and Chet looked at him closely, like he saw something out of order. "Sir, I think you got a little…" he pointed to Dean's neck. "Shaving nick there." He produced a tissue out of nowhere with a flourish, smiling genially, motioning for him to take the tissue. Dean did, a little confused—he hadn't shaved in a day or two, how would he have a nick? But sure enough, the white tissue came away from his neck with a bright red blood stain. _What the hell...?_

"Your room key," Chet said, holding out a dangling silver key.

Dean reached out and took it, a little out of sorts. "Oh, uh. Thanks."

Beside him, he felt Alex moving oddly, tensing up—he looked and saw that she was yawning widely. He chuckled briefly, and looked back at Chet. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to have a coffee shop, would you?"

"Buffet," Chet said, and indicated left of himself. "All you can eat. Best pie in the tri-state area." Dean felt like the clouds had opened and sunshine was pouring through—this guy was speaking his language! "And coffee, too, of course, for the young lady." Chet said, and winked, good humored. Grumpy as hell, Alex just gave him a look like _bite me_.

"_Food_," Dean said urgently to his two siblings. Need he say more? He led the way into the dining room, too hungry to care about going to their room first to change clothes. What awaited them at the buffet was better than Dean could have imagined. It was like out of a dream: colorful, fresh food lined the buffet—he saw fried chicken, ribs, chicken-fried steak, burger and hot dog fixings, several kinds of pasta, salad, corn on the cob, rolls, french fries, an assortment of fresh fruits, grilled vegetables—there was a dessert bar, too. He admired the spread almost lovingly, turned his head toward Sam slightly but not taking his eyes off the food. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?" he asked.

Dean piled a plate high for himself, saw the coffee station, and stopped by it before going to the table Alex had sat down at. She seemed tired and blank, she hadn't gotten any food, she was hunched over the table like a friggin' old lady. With a thunk, Dean set down a mug of coffee in front of her and she looked up at him, a little startled. "Drink up, sleepyhead," he commanded cheerfully, trying to kickstart her. "And sit up straight, would you?" She straightened a little, but it was a weak effort. Dean felt his heart sink a little. He was waiting for her to come back to herself, to start being normal again. But from the look on her face, today didn't seem like the day it was going to happen.

She looked at the coffee he'd brought her unenthusiastically, watched the steam rise, vapid.

"Hey, you want me to get you something?" Dean asked, motioning toward the buffet. Her eyes slid up to follow the direction he was gesturing towards. "They have mac 'n cheese…" he said, wiggling his eyebrows at her. It one of her favorite things to eat, had been since she'd been a kid, but she just looked down at the table.

"Not hungry," she muttered, and he could barely hear or understand her. Dean sighed and gave up, not sure if he were frustrated or hopeless or mad. He went to go get himself some water. What was he supposed to do, cram food down her throat? He couldn't _force_ her to eat. Was he supposed to tell her '_stop being depressed or else_!'? The most worrying thing, to Dean, was her withdrawn nature. It was sort of like she was refusing to let herself feel the pain she obviously carried. And sooner or later it was all going to explode out of her and cause some major damage.

Maybe he was a fool, but Dean was hoping that Cas would show back up and everything would just be... _okay_ again. He did a mental double-take at himself. Like it had _ever_ been okay to begin with. Dean scoffed at himself, shook his head.

When he came back to the table with two waters—one for him, one for her—Sam was sitting beside his twin, picking at a plateful of vegetables and chicken. Alex had a dinner roll—Sam must have given it to her—she was chewing on it autonomously, completely glazed over. Dean and Sam exchanged a look, said nothing. Dean forcefully pushed his thoughts aside and dug in to his food, forgetting about everything except how good the gravy slathered chicken-fried steak was. For a minute, the savory, crunchy heaven on his fork helped him ignore he all the things that were wrong with the world.

Sam scrolled around on his phone, trying to find out about where this storm front had come from. His cell barely got a signal in here and he was getting fed up with the unresponsive internet access. He spent several minutes trying to get it to work with no luck. The page would load halfway or not at all. Sitting across from him, Dean finished inhaling his dinner and got up, gleefully exclaiming something about how many kinds of pie they had here. Sam was a little annoyed. How could Dean think about _pie_ at a time like this?

Beside him, Alex shifted a little, set the half-eaten roll down. "You okay?" Sam asked her. He set his phone down for a second, turning to look at his twin carefully. Her hair was damp, sticking down to her head flatly. She looked pitiful, like a wet kitten, but more than that, she looked _exhausted_, and he knew she could use more sleep—hell, so could he. Glancing at the unfinished roll, he wished she would eat more. He was almost at the point of pulling a Dean and forcefully demanding _you finish that roll now,_ but he held off, knowing _that _wouldn't end well. "Do you wanna go to the room?" He asked her. "I can get the key from Dean if you're too tired to stay out here."

She turned her head toward him a little, she shook it _no _and looked up at the exit, where some of the hotel lobby was visible. Her eyes narrowed just a little, and Sam couldn't tell what she was thinking. She had both of her hands in her jacket pockets. They hadn't left her pockets much this past month at all, come to think of it. "No I'm… I think I'll go check out the pool." She said. She stood, her chair scraping the floor loudly.

Sam did a slight double-take, looking up at her. "The pool?" he asked, confused. "To _swim_?"

"No, not to swim," she said, as if his suggestion was ridiculous. She walked off, didn't take her bag—he was pretty sure she didn't _own_ a swimsuit, anyway. "Don't wander off," he called after her, a little uneasy for reasons he wasn't sure of. He didn't want to crowd her, but he also wasn't sure if she should be alone right now. He fought with himself for a few seconds, not sure if he should follow her or what. _You're being ridiculous, Sam. _Anxious, he returned to scrolling through his phone, trying to get the damn weather page to load. He needed to do something, _anything_ useful.

He was going stir crazy, every day that passed he had to fight himself not to give up completely. That, and every day that passed he remembered what Dean had told him in the panic room: that Dad met Alex in Heaven and he'd said something about Azazel's plans… how the danger wasn't past. Total dread filled Sam every time he thought about that. Because all those years ago… the dreams he'd had… he shuddered slightly. He thought he didn't have to worry anymore. Quickly it flashed across his mind: scorching flames, a soul-shattering scream, the most wretched and vile feeling he'd ever felt. And he suppressed the memories of the dreams fast, too afraid to dwell on them any longer. He didn't want to remember, not even for a second. He didn't want to believe that the dreams Azazel had put inside of him could ever come true. _You need to tell Dean_, the still, small voice of his conscience said. And then immediately after, _you can _never_ tell Dean—you can never tell _anyone_. Just make sure what you saw never happens. _Sam's teeth were grinding together painfully. _How?_

"She go to the bathroom?" Dean's voice startled Sam, he looked up to see his brother arriving back with a plate full of pie.

"No, uh, the pool," Sam said, distracted, and trying to refocus on his phone.

Dean paused, like he'd misheard. "The_ pool._ Okay…" Dean sat down, stared at Sam for a couple beats. "_Sam_, unpucker, man. Eat something, Jesus! Both of you on the air diet or something?"

Sam ignored the comment. "We should hit the road, Dean."

"In this storm?" Dean protested. "What, it's, it's—"

"It's _biblical_," Sam cut him off, setting his phone down a little harder than he needed to. "I-it's friggin' Noah's ark out there, and we're eating _pie_."

Dean looked at Sam closely, and Sam disliked how clearly his brother could see through him. "How many hours of sleep did you get this week?" Dean asked, cutting to the chase. "What? Three? Four? You're tired, you're jumpy, you're not taking care of yourself." He shook his head, displeased. "You and Alex, I swear." He huffed heavily, tried a different approach when he saw Sam's face. He tried to be a little more understanding. "Bobby's got his feelers out, okay? We have talked with every hoodoo man and root woman in twelve states."

That might have been true, but Sam wasn't going to be okay until they had answers. "Yeah, well, I'm not giving up," he said, and Dean reacted viscerally.

"Nobody's _giving up," _Dean said, anger flashing across his features. "Especially me." A tense silence stretched between them. "We're gonna find a way to beat the devil, okay? Soon. I can feel it." Dean was getting a little excitable, but almost in an indignant way. "And you know what else? We will _find _Cas, we'll _get _Adam back somehow. But you are no good to me burnt out. I got one sibling making life hard for me right now, I don't need you to pull the same woe-is-me crap."

Sam looked at Dean, slightly huffy, getting ready to mouth off—but Dean held up a hand for silence, seeming to regret his choice of words. "I only meant…" he said slowly, softly, "that I need you to be strong, Sammy. Cuz she's falling apart. And some days I think I am too, you know? So… don't you do that too." There was a vulnerability there, a deep sad uncertainty that Dean didn't show very often. And Sam was scared by it. But he tried to look supportive and agreeable.

"Yeah," he said, trying a little smile even though he was feeling less sure and stable than ever. "Yeah, okay."

Dean, back to his lofty, good-humored self, spread his hands, a little sly smile on his face. "Come on, we've actually got the night off for once. Let's try to enjoy it. There's like twelve kinds of pies up there, I mean,_ jackpot_!" He chuckled and sliced his fork down into his pie, carefree for the moment.

* * *

The hotel had an olympic sized indoor swimming pool and a heated spa next to it. Several guests splashed around in the pale blue water—there were some young kids in the shallow end with a woman who must have been their mom, there was an elderly man doing laps across the deep end. The room was warm and humid, echoed loudly, smelled like chlorine.

She thought it would have been empty in here, and it wasn't. But it was empty enough. Alex checked her phone, pacing along the back edge of the room. She had this insane paranoia that the second she put her phone down or wasn't paying attention, he would call. So she checked it obsessively. She called his number several times a day. It went straight to voicemail each time. It had been thirty-two days he had been gone.

She selected his name off of her contacts list, hit _call_, her stomach dropped in the most agonizing anticipation she had ever experienced—hope that instead of clicking straight over to voicemail, it would ring this time. That he would answer.

_Click_. Her heart sank. "_You have reached the voicemail box of.._." said the smooth, robotic voice of the voicemail system, and then the voice Alex loved, missed, needed to hear again played: "_I don't understand—why do you want me to say my name?_" She shut her eyes, the sound of his voice doing painful things to her. _Beep, beep, beeeep_. The keypad buttons he'd hit as he'd tried to end the recording. Her face contorted painfully as another, final beep sounded, indicating that she record a message. She hit end, stared at the pool unseeingly, stock still. She heard a kid laughing. Splashing. Someone calling _cannonball!_

Angels… weren't supposed to die. And all this time, _he_ had been afraid _she _would be the one to die. Maybe somehow it got switched. She thought about the hollow, broken shell of a man Castiel had been in 2014. She understood now why he'd been so destroyed. She felt that way, too.

She remembered once reading _it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all._ What a fucking bunch of _shit. _It would be better not to feel this pain. It would be better not to long for something you could never get back. It would be better if Castiel had never met her at all—he'd probably still be _alive_. It would have been better to have never loved him at all.

And at the same time her spirit screamed that knowing him, opening herself up to being loved like he'd loved her… was the best thing that had ever happened to her, ever. She thought of him warm and against her, showing her love in a way words didn't measure—she thought of him protecting her, guarding her, always trying to understand and help her. She loved him_ then _and she loved him _still_ and it _ripped her in half. _

So why did it have to end like this? Why would she fall so deeply in love only to have it ripped away when it had barely just begun? She realized she was growing short of breath.

The answers didn't come to the questions her entire soul strained for. In her hand, she squeezed her phone so hard that some of the plastic casing cracked.

She couldn't bear to think of him too much or she felt like she would break apart. So she shoved her feelings away, stomping them down before she could really _feel_ them.

Alex looked at the pool again, and was suddenly struck by the utter silence. Everyone was gone. The pool was empty and still, the entire place was empty, deserted. No one was left. _What the hell? _Had she spaced out again?

There was a sudden, sharp little sting on the side of her neck and she jumped, startled, a hand clapping to the place where the pain originated. She felt something wet underneath her fingers, drew her hand away—saw a small amount of blood.

Suddenly feeling a lot more alert than she had for a long time, Alex put her phone away, looked around suspiciously, her heart hammering, her adrenaline picking up. Quickly, quietly, she slipped out of the pool room.

* * *

Dean and Sam walked down the hallway a couple floors up, scanning room number plaques for room 102. When they found the room, they heard a loud giggle—in front of the doorway to the room next to theirs was a very excited couple was making out—the woman giggled again, _loudly,_ and Dean chuckled, leered, pointed, as the guy pulled his jacket off, bumping the woman up against the door simultaneously.

"What are you,_ twelve_?" Sam asked at Dean's juvenile reaction, but he couldn't hide his little amused smile either.

Dean gave Sam a good natured scoff as he unlocked their room. "I'm young at heart!"

The door swung open and Dean whistled in low awe as the two of them went on in. "Wow," he commented, looking around at the deluxe room, well pleased. "Look at this. We're like Rockefellers." There were two beds made up with expensive looking red duvets, and each bed had a little candy bar nestled on the pillow. "Chocolates! Ooh." Dean picked one up, delighted, then glanced at Sam. "You want yours?"

Sam shook his head—he was looking around in increasing puzzlement. He had a weird feeling. "Knock yourself out… think I'm gonna go find Alex."

Dean's next discovery halted Sam. "Whoa." Dean picked up the little information display that was on the nightstand. It was mounted to a wooden block, and Dean held it out to Sam. "'Casa Erotica 13' on _demand_." From Dean's excited expression, you'd think he'd discovered a lost treasure. Sam scoffed slightly, then stopped, deep in thought and Dean's smiled faded. "What?"

Sam shrugged, gestured vaguely. "Isn't this place... in the middle of nowhere?"

Dean was unconcerned. "So?"

"So... what's a four-star hotel doing on a no-star highway?"

Dean shrugged, obviously thinking _don't know, don't care. _ On the other side of the wall of their hotel room, they could hear the couple again—a high pitched shriek of laughter and then a pleasurable moan—Dean snickered again, ever the mature one—they heard a thump, and then there was a very, _very_ loud thud—and then the wall shivered, shook—the flatscreen TV almost fell off the wall as it cracked and plaster dust went flying. Sam and Dean looked at each other wordlessly, then hurried out of the room and over to the room next door—which, coincidentally, was labelled Honeymoon Suite.

Sam opened the door, they barged in, only to find—nothing. No one. The room was empty. The large king-sized bed had rumpled blankets on it, but other than that, there was no sign that anyone had even been in the room at all.

"Hello?" Dean called, walking into the room slowly, cautious.

Sam checked the bathroom. "No one," he said as he came back out.

Dean had knelt down at the foot of the bed, was picking something up from the shag throw carpet—a silver engagement ring with a solitaire diamond. "Something's not right here," he muttered as he stood up, looking at the ring closely.

"You think?" Sam whispered tensely, looking around nervously.

Dean pocketed the engagement ring, his earlier happy-go-lucky mood completely gone. "Okay, you know what? We need to find Alex, pronto."

"Agreed." Sam nodded, swallowed, looking around the room and then following Dean out.

Once they were in the hallway, they saw a familiar face heading toward them—their sister, and she looked—different. She looked both alert and present, and the brothers paused as she marched up to them. "Something _weird_ is happening here," she hissed, whispering, seeming to be as suspicious as them.

"Hey, what happened to your neck?" Sam asked, seeing a small bloody gash on her neck.

"That's what_ I _wanna know," she said. "Also, why everyone just… _disappeared_ from the pool all the sudden."

Dean and Sam exchanged a wary glance. "Disappeared, huh?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, you guys seen anything weird?" she asked.

Dean chuckled, he put an arm around her, turning her around the other way. "Walk with me," he said.

* * *

"The, uh, the room next to ours—the couple that are, uh, joined at the lips—have you seen them?" Dean asked Chet. They were in the lobby once more. "Mr. and Mrs. Logan—the... honeymooners?" Chet asked. He typed on his keyboard yet again, almost too fast to be humanly possible. The screen was turned too far away for Alex to see what he was typing. He turned back to them, smiled politely. "They checked out. Is something the matter?"

"They... checked out?" Sam repeated.

"Mm-hmm. Mm, just now."

"_Really_? It sort of seemed like they were, uh…" he paused for meaning. "...in the middle of something."

Chet shrugged deeply, that smile of his never leaving his face.

"Yeah, it's kind of weird for honeymooners to, uh, check out without this." Dean held up the engagement ring, and Chet looked mildly surprised.

"Oh, dear," the hotel attendant said, and then reached out, took the ring from Dean. "I'll just put that right in the lost and found. Don't you worry. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Dean was looking at the guy with thinly veiled mistrust. "Uh, no. No, we're good."

Chet's eyes slid from Dean to Sam to Alex, and his smile was becoming downright unnerving. "Super fantastic!"

All three Winchesters gave him an attempt at _you betcha_ smiles, but as they turned around, put their backs to Chet, each of their expressions became more like_ what the fuck is going on_?

"Creepy," Sam commented in a low voice as soon as they were a few steps off and out of earshot.

"Twilight zone creepy," his sister put in.

"Yeah, just a little bit," Dean agreed quietly, and glanced back at Chet, who was going through some papers, his back to them. "All right, well. I'll scope out the joint, you two keep an eye on Norman Bates over here." Dean seemed a little annoyed. "I mean, one night off. Is that too much to ask?" He sighed, resigned, said "watch your backs," as he walked away.

Sam shrugged, Alex sat down on one of the couches and picked up a magazine, pretended to read it, watching Chet carefully as Sam paced around, leaned against the fireplace, seeming to be really nerve-wracked overall. A couple of hotel guests came and went, about five minutes passed. Chet unexpectedly went out from behind the desk and headed down a hallway. Sam straightened from where he'd been leaned against the fireplace, Alex stood up.

"I'll follow him, you check out the computers," he said, and she nodded. Sam hurried off at a brisk pace, following Chet down a side hallway and then around a corner.

Alex looked around, made sure no one was watching as she approached the front desk. She went to the main computer, hit the space bar, expecting the screen to wake up. Nothing happened. She looked around at the back of the computer, realizing that it wasn't plugged in to anything. The hell? There were a few more computers lining the check-in counter, and she realized none of them were plugged in, either—like they were just props or something. She picked up one of the phones, heard nothing. No dial tone, nothing.

Getting weirded out and _fast_, Alex turned, glancing around before she began to page through the files that Chet had been looking through a minute ago—and she quickly discovered that they were all _blank sheets of paper._ This was getting creepy as hell, and Alex stuck the files back in the box they'd been in, came out from behind the counter… and realized that no one else was around. The dining room, which she could see when she craned her head to the left, was empty. The bar across the way, empty and unattended. Something felt very, very wrong. She went the way Sam had gone, quiet, feeling like she needed to be careful, like she needed to be discreet.

She rounded a corner and she and Sam practically ran into each other.

"Ah geez, you almost gave me a heart attack," Sam said, and Alex looked around worriedly.

"Where's Chet?" she whispered.

Sam shrugged, seeming to be at a loss. "I dunno, he disappeared, then I got _this._" He pointed at a little nick on his neck and Alex looked at him funny. The elevator dinged beside them.

"Yo, bozos," came a familiar voice, and they looked to see Dean coming out of the elevator. "No EMF to speak of, but there were elephants. Well. An elephant. Singular."

The twins looked at each other, then Dean, simultaneously. "_What_?" they chorused.

He shrugged, explaining matter-of-factly. "I was walking past some room, I saw an elephant, I looked again, it was just a dude."

He began to walk back toward the lobby and his siblings were hot on his heels. Alex was looking at him like he might have lost his mind. "So… you think you saw an elephant."

"I _did_ see an elephant," he insisted.

"An _elephant_?" Sam repeated. "_In_ the hotel."

Dean gave them both growing impatient looks. "Yes." "Like, an _elephant _elephant?" Sam asked.

"Should I say it in _Spanish_?" Dean asked, mildly irritable. "Yeah, it was an elephant. Like, full-on Babar."

"Okay. So. Elephant. What the hell is…" Sam trailed off as they came into the ghost town lobby. It was eerie, and the lounge music was still playing, making it eerier. His voice dropped a couple notches in volume, he seemed to think of something. "I haven't seen anyone but us in like, at least ten minutes. Where_ is _everyone?" Sam glanced around, then went over and tried to lobby doors—but they didn't open.

"Let me guess—it's locked." Dean was grim and on edge now. "So what—the roaches check in, they don't check out?"

"Think about how we got here," Sam said slowly, dawning realization in his voice. "That detour on I-90? The friggin' _hurricane_?"

"You saying we were led here?" Dean asked.

"Like rats in a maze."

"But by who?" Alex asked, and she was feeling a familiar sick worry in her stomach again. "Angels? Demons?"

"At this point, no telling," Dean said. "What _I_ wanna know is where did all the guests go." He looked around, trying to decide what course of action to take next. "Come on. We're gonna check the kitchen. Maybe some staff is still in there."

They went through the empty dining room, noting some tables weren't cleared off, some plates looked unfinished, like the people who had been eating had left in the middle of their meals unexpectedly.

Not good.

The Winchesters went into the kitchen and found that it was deserted, too. There was a huge pot of red liquid bubbling on the stove and Dean went closer to it, cautiously. "Please be tomato soup. _Please_ be tomato soup…" he lifted up the ladle, and with it came human eyeballs. The three of them all turned away, queasy, making grossed out sounds as Dean declared "Motel hell."

"Yeah that's _disgusting_," Alex muttered even as Sam was looking with interest at the freezer—it was locked, and he wondered why, walked over to it slowly. He peered into the little glass window, and suddenly jumped back when a hand slapped up against the other side of the glass.

"Help us! Get us out!" a panicked man cried—a hotel guest they had seen earlier in the dining room. Sam yanked on the handle of the freezer just in case, but it was locked tight, and he took out his lock picking kit, shakily jammed one of the picks into the lock.

"Hurry up!" Dean urged, and Sam turned to look at his brother. "I'm going as fast as I…" he trailed off. _Oh no._ "as I can."

Dean recognized the look on his brother's face and his shoulders fell slightly. "There's somebody behind me, isn't there?"

Dean was grabbed roughly by strong, large hands, yanked backwards, even as a tall black man darted forward and pulled Sam away from the freezer.

"You're coming with us," said Dean's captor—a short, overweight Asian man.

Sam was confused, looking around the kitchen for Alex. "Where's—" he started.

"_Shh_," Dean cut him off sharply, giving him a look. She must have gotten away or hidden. "Easy, _easy_!" Dean complained, as the guy holding him began to shove him forward.

The two brothers were manhandled out of the kitchen, across the dining room, and into the grand ballroom, where a roomful of elegantly dressed men and women looked at the new arrivals curiously. The fancy ballroom was set up for a banquet, two long tables facing each other. An ice sculpture of a dolphin was on a back table, elegant glasses filled with champagne surrounded it.

Sam and Dean stared, not so much at the room but the people in it—the name tags on the people in the room were very familiar and disconcerting—Ganesh, Odin, Kali, Baron Samedi, Baldur, Meili—"Something tells me this isn't a Shriner convention," Dean said, breathless.

From back behind a partition, Chet—now wearing a name tag that said Mercury—wheeled a serving platter in. He stopped and lifted up the silver covering from the platter to reveal a severed human head surrounded by entrails and vegetables. "Dinner is served!" Mercury announced, and there was polite applause from the rooms occupants even as Sam and Dean shrank back in horrified disgust. A sudden blinding spotlight came on, and the brothers squinted, jumped. "Ladies and Gentleman, our guests of honor have arrived," said the man with the name tag Baldur. He was a handsome man looking to be in his mid-thirties. He work an expensive suit; he had dark hair and eyes, strong features.

Sam and Dean looked at each other, shocked and unsure what was going on. "If everyone will please take their seats," Baldur continued in his softly accented voice, picking up a flute of champagne, smiling charmingly. "We'll begin."

The men who held Sam and Dean shoved them roughly into chairs at the end of the table. Dean gave Sam the _be cool_ sign, and the two of them waited, watched, vigilant.

Everyone sat down, there was the low buzz of conversation. A woman in a striking red dress stared at Dean and Sam with a cool, superior expression on her face. She looked of middle eastern descent—she was very beautiful and young, alluring—but there was something distinctly terrible and ominous about her. Her name tag read Kali.

Baldur clicked a fork to his champagne glass, calling for quiet. "Ladies and gentleman, thank you for coming. In all my centuries, I never thought I'd see this." He had a pleased smile on his face. "This many gods under one roof." "_Gods?" _Sam repeated in a whisper only Dean could hear. The brothers were looking at each other like_ holy shit… not good. _ "Now," Baldur continued, looking around at the occupants of the tables. "before we get down to brass tacks, some ground rules. No slaughtering each other. Curb your wrath." He smiled almost coyly now. "Oh, and uh, keep your hands off the local virgins. We're, trying to keep a low profile here."

Beside Dean, Sam shrunk down in his chair a little as his eyes flickered frantically over the occupants of the room. "Oh, we are so... so screwed," he murmured.

"We all know why we're here," Baldur said. "The Judeo-Christian apocalypse looms over us. I know we've all had our little disagreements in the past… but the time has come to put those aside and look toward the future. Because if we _don't_, we won't have one. Now we do have two very valuable bargaining chips." Baldur looked straight down the middle of the table at Dean and Sam, pointed a finger. "Michael and Lucifer's vessels."

Everyone at the tables turned to look at them, and suddenly Sam and Dean understood… these gods meant _business_.

Baldur paused, suddenly narrowing his eyes at the boys, then looking to Kali as if something were not as he had expected. "I thought there was a sister."

"There is," Kali confirmed in a low, bored voice. "But who cares? She's not important. She's not a vessel."

Mercury stood up halfway. "I can go get her, if you'd like."

"No," Kali said, her voice carrying more commanding this time. "Like I said. She's not important, at least not right now. I only bound her too because I don't want her running away to get help or some nonsense like that."

"Bound her?" Dean asked quietly to Sam, who shook his head, unsure.

But just as soon as Sam had shaken his head _I don't know_, he grew still in realization. "Our blood," he said, thinking about how they had all gotten little nicks on their necks. "Somehow… our _blood_."

* * *

One second she was in the kitchen gagging over the thought of blood soup, the next she was suddenly in a random hotel room. She turned around and her eyes went wide in recognition when she saw who stood there smiling at her idiotically.

"Hiya!" Gabriel said.

"_You_!" Alex exclaimed accusingly.

He shrugged in false modesty, his arms wide. "Me!"

Alex grabbed the first thing her hand found—a wooden Casa Erotica display piece—and threw it at his head.

Gabriel ducked it easily, laughed. "Hey, easy tiger! You forgetting something?"

"Oh no, I haven't forgotten a _damn _thing!" she told him angrily, remembering what he'd made her go through the last time she'd seen him.

He rolled his eyes dramatically. "No not _that_." He looked at her chidingly, told her what she'd forgotten: "I'm an _angel_... you can't hurt me, _silly_."

What he said stilled her, she felt a great deal of her anger fade away. "That's not true. Angels can get hurt."

Acknowledging that she had a point, Gabriel pulled a thoughtful face. "Touché." He smiled at her almost sympathetically. "Truce?"

Alex looked at him weirdly. Was he _high_? A truce? "_No_. Why did you pull me out of the kitchen?" The second she asked it, a thought struck her; she suddenly felt afraid that she knew _exactly _what was going on, and she looked around the room, trying to figure out if it were real or not. "Is this more of your fucking mind game crap right now? This hotel?" She grabbed him by his jacket demandingly. "What did you do with Sam and Dean?"

"Whoa, whoa!" Gabriel looked almost insulted, and his face wrinkled up in distaste. "I didn't touch them. _Uh_-uh. I'm not behind this. In fact, just the opposite." His eyebrows raised up, he spread his arms out widely, he grinned and his eyes twinkled. "I'm here to _rescue _you."

Alex scowled at him and she let go, suspicious and sarcastic. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to say you look a little short for a storm trooper?"

Gabriel gave her a look like he thought she was being cute, he put his hands on his hips. "Ah, two nerd points for you." His smile faded. "All joking aside, your brothers are in serious loads of ca-ca right now and the only one who can help _any_ of you is me."

"What are you_ talking _about?" Alex asked, getting more and more frustrated by the second.

"Downstairs, at this very moment," Gabriel said, walking the space in front of her, "a bunch of petty little gods are gathered to sell your brothers, the 'all-important vessels,' to the highest bidder." He paused, shrugged, made a squinty, thoughtful face. "Sell them or kill them."

"_Gods_?" She repeated.

"Yup! Gods. May have heard of a few of them. Odin, Kali, Ganesh, Mercury—the gang's all here!"

"Wait, Ganesh… the god with the elephant head?" Alex's eyes slid down at to the side in thought. So Dean _wasn't_ nuts. "_Huh_."

"That's the one." Gabriel chuckled. "Down in the ballroom there's pretty much every god a kid could ever hope to meet. All except the one who we'd all really like to see, right?" Gabriel sighed with dramatic, false sadness. "My dad's a no show, as _usual_."

"So you're saying a bunch of super-powered deities have Sam and Dean and you're… here to save us?" Not buying it, Alex narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

Gabriel chuckled. "Do I need a reason?"

Alex looked at the archangel like he was a moron. "Hmm. Let me think. _Yes_."

Gabriel threw his hands up in exasperation. "_Why_ do I _always_ have to explain _everything_?" He complained dramatically.

Alex folded her arms, set her gaze on him condescendingly. "_Really_?" She asked, because he had to be some kind of idiot to ask her that.

He rolled his eyes again, huffed. "Okay, you know what, I'm _sorry_," he said mockingly. "What I did to you was _wrong_."

Alex gave him a bitch face that would have made Sam proud. "And the academy award for biggest jackass goes to you."

Gabriel looked at her with a small amount of genuine frustration now. "Look, I did what I did. Okay? And _now_, I'm here to _help_ you." He shrugged, nonchalant. "I have my reasons, and they're legit, believe it or not." He canted his head to the side. "Alex, I grabbed you up outta that kitchen before those pious dickholes could get to you, doesn't that count for _something_?"

She looked at him in suspicion, trying to figure out his angle. In turn, he looked at her with something akin to fascination or maybe that was contempt. She couldn't tell. "You don't trust easy, do you?"

A cold, cynical little smile came across her face. "_Mm_. Not the best idea in my line of work."

Gabriel became annoyed and blunt. "Look. Here's the deal. Those gods down there, sure, they bound you and your brothers by blood but the punchline is that _you_—" he poked a finger into her shoulder roughly, "_you're_ not important to them. It's Sam and Dean they want. So right now, you and I have an opportunity."

"_You and I_?" Alex repeated.

"Yeah!" Gabriel gave her a crazy look. "You gotta be _nuts _if you think I'm gonna mount this rescue effort by myself!"

Alex leaned a little closer for emphasis. "And you gotta be nuts if you think _I'm_ gonna work with"—she poked him in the shoulder just like he'd done to her a second ago—"_you_."

Gabriel looked a little surprised. "You're gonna go up a bunch of gods by yourself then?"

Alex shrugged, made a face. "Why friggin' bother? Everyone keeps telling me this is how it ends. So_ let it end_." She was surprised to hear herself say it out loud, and surprised at how little she felt when she actually said it. "Let it end," she said again, realizing she was perfectly okay with the thought of everything just being over and done with, finally.

Gabriel looked like he'd never heard so much bullshit in his life. "Oh my _dad _you're pathetic. Get over yourself! Oh geez_ boo hoo_. What is this, _Twilight_?! Your little boyfriend disappears and you fall apart and lose the will to live?! Come _on_!"

At the mention of _him_, Alex bristled. "You know what, isn't this kind of what you _wanted_? Weren't you telling them to… 'play their roles' just a few months back?"

"I've had a change of heart," Gabriel said simply, and came a little closer, intense. "You're in over your head here Alex. You can listen to what I'm trying to tell you and we can get your brothers the hell outta dodge… or you can sit up here feeling sorry for yourself and not doing a damn thing to change it."

She said nothing, trying to control herself. Everything he was saying was making her _so frigging mad_. She just kept her mouth clamped shut, looked away.

Gabriel seemed angry, too. "You know, I don't remember thinking the story would end this way, that the heroine would just… give up and piss away all the hard work she and her family put in." He was judging her harshly, and it came through in his tone, words, and demeanor. "I thought you were supposed to be a strong female character, _Al_."

She looked at him indignantly. "This isn't a _book_, this my_ life _and it's_ hard as hell _and you know _nothing_ about what you're saying to me!" She snapped loudly. "What I'm _going through_."

"_Finally,_ some emotion! Geez Louise!" Gabriel exclaimed, back to his goofy, stupid personality. But then he reigned it in a little. "Hey, for the record though... that's where you're wrong. I've loved and lost, just like you. My dad? Gone, absent. He doesn't give a shit about me. My brothers? Those two idiots are gonna end the world over their petty disagreements and daddy issues. And the one I love? Ah. Let's not even open_ that _can of worms. So don't tell me I don't know what you're talking about. Because I do."

"Oh_ good for you_, Gabe," Alex said rudely, making a face.

Gabriel gave her a sort of suggestive look. "By the way? It was high time Cas got laid if you ask me." At the sharp, angry look she gave him, he raised his hands as if in surrender. "I'm just saying!" He smiled, raised his eyebrows. "And hey, you know what? He's a tricky little bastard. Maybe even trickier than me. I wouldn't be surprised if he shows back up again."

Alex wanted to punch him in the face, because that's what her brothers kept saying—that Cas would come back—and she couldn't take hearing that false hope much more because every time she heard it, she believed it less. "_Shut up,_" she growled, trying to control herself and not think about _him_. "Don't talk about him to me."

"Hey, _sorry_," Gabriel said, chuckling now. "Didn't mean to overstep my bounds."

"Okay, you know what, _go away_ Gabriel!" Alex barked, getting riled up. "I'm not helping you today or _ever._"

"Come _on_, Alex," Gabriel said, looking at her in growing condescension. "You're gonna let those gods do whatever to your brothers? I'm disappointed!"

Alex gave him an _oh please_ look. "Like I care about how you _feel._"

Gabriel sighed with an exaggerated huff, supremely annoyed. "Well, didn't wanna have to do this _but_…" Gabriel suddenly slapped her across the face—not hard, but startlingly. "Snap out of it!" he commanded.

"Ouch, _hey_!" Alex exclaimed, a hand on her stinging cheek. And without even thinking, she hauled off and slapped him right back.

He didn't even blink—but it seemed to be the thought that counted. He looked shocked at what she'd done. "What was that for?!" he asked her with innocent, wounded eyes.

"_You_ slapped _me_!" Alex told him.

"You're damn right I did, did it work? Did it knock some sense into you?"

She said nothing, and Gabriel pointed at her authoritatively. "Listen, _headcase_: get yourself together, get over the fact that you don't like me. There's still work to do."

Her cheek stung, her blood was pumping fast. And it was the first time in weeks that she'd felt anything like life.

"Last chance: do you want to save your brothers or _not_?" Gabriel asked.

Alex didn't want to work with this clown, but she realized it was probably her best option right now. She pushed her stubborn pride down, looked at Gabriel reluctantly. He was right and she hated to admit it. She knew for a fact that she couldn't go up against a bunch of gods by herself. "Just…" she sighed heavily, couldn't believe she was agreeing to this. "Tell me what to do."

* * *

"Well _I say_ we _kill _them!" Zao Shen shouted loudly, banging his fist down on the table, giving Sam and Dean a furious glare.

Ganesh laughed. "Kill 'em? What, so the angels can bring the back again?"

The brothers looked at each other sidelong. This was pretty horrible, listening to a bunch of gods argue over what to do with you. "I don't know what everybody's getting so worked up about! It's just a couple of angels having a slap fight!" Odin said, vaguely disinterested. "There's no 'Armageddon.' Everybody knows, when the world comes to an end, the Great Serpent Jörmungandr rises up, and I myself will be eaten by a big wolf!" He belly laughed. Zao Shen rolled his eyes and sighed. "Here we go…"

"Oh yeah?" Odin asked, looking across the table at the other god with disdain. "And why is that? Because_ your _beliefs are so much more realistic? The whole world's getting carried around on the back of a giant turtle? _Ha!_ Give me a break!" Zao Shen didn't react well to the insult. "Don't mock my world turtle!" he exclaimed indignantly.

"What are you gonna do about it?" Odin asked, standing suddenly, leaning across the table and staring Zao Shen down menacingly.

"I'm gonna send you packing to Valhalla!" Zao Shen retorted, wagging his finger at Odin.

"You watch your mouth when you talk to me, _boy_!" Odin said, angrily pointing his finger right back at Zao Shen.

Sam and Dean looked at each other, and Dean nodded slightly, they quietly got up. "_Boy_?" Zao Shen repeated, clearly insulted. "I'm older than you!"

The brothers moved quietly toward the door, hoping the argument would cover their escape. "No one's ever proved that," Odin said, cranky.

There was a loud crash and Sam and Dean jumped back from the chandelier that had just plummeted down without warning in front of them.

"_Stay,_" Kali said, her low voice ominous and commanding, and the Winchesters turned back around to face her, not seeming to have a choice but to comply. She looked at them a second longer, then turned her attention to the gods and goddesses in the room. "We have to fight. The archangels—the only thing they understand is violence. This ends in blood. There is no other way, it's _them_, or _us_."

Mercury, sitting at the end of one of the tables, spoke up, raising two fingers for attention. "With... all due respect, ma'am, we haven't even tried talking to the archangels." Kali looked at him sharply, and simultaneously, Mercury began to choke up blood. He grabbed his collar, panicked and struggling.

"_Kali_..." Baldur said warningly, stopping the goddess from killing the other god outright.

Mercury collapsed forward, able to breathe again, and Kali seemed mildly amused, looked at Mercury cooly, who was panting and looking at the goddess in fear. She raised a single eyebrow at him. "Who asked _you_?"

The two doors of the grand ballroom suddenly swung open and in came Gabriel, arms stretched wide. "Can't we _all_ just get_ along_!" he asked with an air of grand theatre.

Dean and Sam looked at the newcomer in shock. "Ga—" Dean started, but was cut off, unable to say a thing, he looked at Sam, who seemed to be similarly incapable of speech, moving his mouth oddly, soundlessly.

Gabriel tsk-tsked at them. "Sam... Dean..." he smiled almost like he was amused. "It's always wrong place, worst time with you muttonheads, huh?"

"Loki," Baldur said, greeting Gabriel as if he knew him. Sam and Dean looked at each other in complete confusion when Baldur called him by that name.

"Baldur," Gabriel replied, pretending to be glad to see him, but it was clearly facetious. "Good seeing you too." He walked forward past Sam and Dean, made a face. "I guess my invitation got lost in the mail."

"_Why_ are you here?" Baldur asked, ignoring the comment about Gabriel's—Loki's—invitation.

"To talk about the elephant in the room," Gabriel said, and Ganesh began to stand up, indignant. "Not_ you_," Gabriel said, and his tone became serious. "The _apocalypse._ We can't stop it, gang." He held up a finger, smiled brightly. "But first things first." He turned back to Sam and Dean, gave them a little wiseass smile, looked at them pretentiously. "The _adults_ need to have a little conversation. Check you later!" He held up his hands, snapped his fingers, and Sam and Dean were no longer in the grand ballroom.

"Okay. Wh—did that just—holy _crap_!" Dean commented, totally beside himself, looking around at the hotel room they were suddenly in.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Sam said, similarly shocked. "By the way, next time I say let's keep driving, uh... _let's keep driving_!"

"Okay, yeah," Dean said, and put a hand on his head, looked around the room, still a little stunned. "Next time—now where the hell is our damn sister?"

"I'm right here," Alex said, and both of the brothers turned, startled, as she came into the room, slammed the door behind herself. She looked pretty sullen and was carrying a crowbar.

"What are you doing with _that_?" Dean asked, and she threw it down onto the floor with a loud clatter.

"Gabe had me run a little errand for him but guess what? It was a bust." She looked at both of them closely, getting apprehensive. "Is it true? A bunch of gods downstairs?"

"Yup, all arguing over whether to_ slit our throats_ or not," Dean said, feigning enthusiasm.

"Oh. Well. That's… just _perfect_," Alex muttered.

"Our thoughts exactly," Sam said, ran a hand through his hair, looked to Dean. "Alright, so what's our next move?"

Dean seemed a little bit out of his element. "I-I-I... I don't know. Grab those poor saps outta the freezer, I guess? Bust 'em out? Gank a few freaks along the way if we're lucky?"

"And when are _you_ ever lucky?" Gabriel asked, and all three of the Winchesters turned fast to see that the angel was now in the room with them, seated casually in an arm chair, his leg crossed over his knee.

"You know what, bite me, Gabriel," Dean suggested gruffly.

Gabriel's eyebrows wiggled and he uncrossed his legs, stood up. "Maybe later, big boy."

Dean went to him, grabbing him with one hand. "Listen, after that shit you put my sister through, you and I are gonna have words."

"Cool your jets, Hulkster," Gabriel said, and took Dean's hand, removed it easily—Dean cringed and shrunk under the strong grip. "We don't have time for the melodrama, and anyway, she and I have spoken our piece. We're good."

Dean looked at Alex for confirmation. She just made a face, like _I guess so_. Dean shook his head, looking at Gabriel mistrustfully, darkly. "I should've known, man. I mean this had your stink all over it from the jump."

Gabriel looked severely let down. "Geez, you _too_? That's what she said. Look, I'm only gonna say it one more time: I'm not behind this. I'm the Costner to your Houston. I'm here to _save_ your ass."

"_You_ wanna pull _us _outta the fire?" Dean asked, incredulous.

"Bingo!" Gabriel confirmed. "Those guys are either gonna dust you, or use you as bait. Either way, you're uber boned."

"Wow, cuz a couple of months ago you were telling us that we need to 'play our roles.'" Dean said. "_You're _uber boning _us_!"

Gabriel shook his head, chuckled. "Ohh... the end is still nigh. Michael and Lucifer are gonna dance the lambada, but not tonight. Not here."

"And why do you care?" Dean asked suspiciously.

Gabriel looked at Alex in annoyance—Dean was asking the exact same things she had. "I _don't_ care," Gabriel said. "But, me and Kali we, uh, had a thing. Chick was all hands. What can I say? I'm sentimental." At the untrusting, skeptical looks he was getting, Gabriel got exasperated. "I _have_ my reasons, okay?"

"Listen, do those gods have a chance?" Sam asked quietly. "Against Satan?" "Really, Sam?" Dean asked in surprise, turning to look back at his brother for an explanation. Alex looked startled by Sam's question.

"You got a better idea, Dean? I mean, we've been looking for options, right? Maybe this _is_ one."

Gabriel shook his head. "It's a bad idea. Trust me, Lucifer's gonna turn them into finger paint. So let's get going while the going's good, hmm?"

He looked at Alex with an expectant smile and she just give him a sullen side eye. "We _can't_." She shrugged unhappily. "I tried to get into Kali's room like you told me, but she had some kind of spell or warding on it. I couldn't even get to the _door,_ much less get to the blood."

Gabriel looked annoyed.

"Blood?" Dean asked.

"Yours," Gabriel explained. "Kali had one of her little errand boys, probably Mercury, get blood from each of you. Sorry to break it to ya, but you're bound to her until the end of time… _or_ until she decides to let you go."

Dean didn't like to be told that kind of stuff—he stared Gabriel down threateningly. "So what do we do to get outta here?"

"_You_? You do nothing. Me… I'm gonna lay on a bit of the old black magic." Gabriel produced some mouth spray out of nowhere, spritzed some into his mouth, wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Dean made a face. "Okay, yeah, whatever you gotta do. But we're gonna take the hors d'oeuvres in the freezer with us, okay?"

Gabriel shot him down immediately. "Uh no. Forget it. It's gonna be hard enough sneaking you mooks outta here."

"They called you Loki, right?" Dean asked, and Alex looked at her brother in confusion. "Which means they don't really know who you are?"

"_What_? Loki?" Alex asked, and looked at Gabe, who shrugged modestly. "Told you. I'm in witness protection." Dean smiled cooly. "Okay, well then how about you do what we say, or we tell the, uh, legion of doom about your secret identity?" He asked. "They don't seem like a real pro-angel kinda crowd."

Gabriel's confidence had faded a couple degrees. "I'll take your voices away." "We'll write it down," Dean countered.

"I'll cut off your hands," Gabriel retorted.

"We'll do an interpretive _dance_," Alex put in sarcastically, drawing a sharp look from both her brother and the archangel. "Come on Gabe. Do us this one solid, help us save those people. Or... I'll stab you in the chest."

The brothers both looked at Alex sidelong at her casual but sincere threat.

Gabe chuckled. "Like _that_ would…" he started, but trailed off when she pulled her jacket aside to reveal the hilt of an angel blade sticking out from the top of her pants.

"Don't think I won't," she told him, dead serious. And they both knew that maybe she wouldn't be fast enough to actually pull one over on him—but she was crazy enough to try it.

"You kept his blade," Gabriel said in soft surprise, his eyes flickered up to hers, he got one of those stupid smiles on his face. "And you keep it in your pants. _Kinky_."

At the_ I'm gonna kill you_ glare Alex shot at him, Gabe relented, seeming to be annoyed that his fun kept getting cut short. "_Fine_," he said. "I'll help you guys get those saps out of here, but it's a bad idea, and if this goes south—your fault, not mine."

He straightened his jacket smartly, smoothed his hair down for show. "_Now_. I'm gonna go lay on the charm with Kali, get the blood, zap us out. You have five minutes to get them out of the freezer."

* * *

The three Winchesters hurried downstairs, then had to duck back when they heard a man screaming—two of the gods—Zao Shen and Odin—held down one of the guys from the freezer, a cleaver held high. "No! N-No! No! Please! _Gah!"_ Dean made to move forward, but Sam stopped him abruptly.

"It's too late," Sam whispered frantically, even as they heard the sick sound of flesh being split open. The screams stopped. The lounge music played pleasantly.

The gods took the decapitated man into the grand ballroom, presumably to eat him, and the Winchesters slipped across the open space and into the kitchen entrance. All three of them rushed to the freezer, and when those trapped inside saw them, they began to shout and pound the door. Sam again began to pick the lock—Dean and Alex were suddenly grabbed from behind in tandem and sent flying backwards across the kitchen and into some metal shelves by Zao Shen, who had blood on his mouth.

He grabbed Sam by the neck, pinning him against the freezer door. Sam struggled, protesting in painful groans as the god lifted him high until his feet dangled off of the ground. Dean was trying to get up even as Alex, a little faster to get on her feet, was whipping out Castiel's blade and

"No, Alex!" Dean protested, holding a hand out uselessly. But she took the angel blade in both hands and stabbed it hard into Zao Shen's back—the god let go of Sam, screaming in pain as Alex yanked the blade back out. He fell over, dead, and Sam nodded a brief thanks to his sister, began to work on the lock again, rushing as Dean and Alex stood side by side, tense as they waited for Sam to finish.

Dean stared at his sister in surprise, then the blade in her hand. "That thing can kill gods?"

"Apparently it can kill _that_ one," Alex said, but she seemed as surprised as he did, staring at the blade in her hand with an odd expression on her face.

"And what if it _didn't?_" Dean asked her, his tone bordering on accusing.

She shrugged, her expression and gesture seemed to ask _what does it matter?_ "Where the _hell _is Gabriel?" Dean asked.

"Not coming," said a deep voice. There stood Baron Samedi, Meili, and Ganesh.

Dean, who had turned fast, was blocking the view of Alex to them—and subsequently the view of the blade in her hand—and he made a big show of standing there with his hands on his hips as he said "Hi, guys."

And Alex knew enough to take the opportunity he was purposefully giving her to put the blade away before it was seen. So she did, shoving it back into the waistband of her jeans just in time. Ganesh grabbed her, pushed her out of the kitchen. Sam and Dean were being forced along right in front of her. They were taken into the grand ballroom where Gabriel sat, Kali staring down at him. Great. Foiled again—his romantic conquest seemed to have failed.

"Who is this ugly small boy?" Odin asked, looking at Alex.

"The sister," Kali said simply, and Odin made a repelled face. Alex gave him a _bite me_ face.

"How long have you known?" Gabriel asked Kali.

"Long enough," she replied quietly. There was a dangerous quality to her poised calm.

"How's the _rescue_ going?" Dean asked the archangel sarcastically as he and his siblings were shoved down into chairs at the table this time. Gabriel gave him a dirty look. On either side of Dean, his siblings looked at him like _what are we gonna do_? He just shrugged helplessly, feeling cornered, backed against a wall. They were outnumbered, bad.

"Well, surprise, surprise," Kali said, addressing the occupants of the room. "The _Trickster _has _tricked _us."

"Kali, don't," Gabriel begged softly, so quietly that Alex could barely make out the words.

"You're mine now," she said to him softly, and sat on his lap at this point, seductively. "And you have something I want." She ran her hand down his chest sensually... reached into his jacket... and pulled out his angel's blade. "An archangel's blade," she said loudly. "From the archangel... _Gabriel._"

She stood up even as all of the gods in the room looked at Gabriel with new levels of mistrust. Gabriel seemed to realize he needed to head off his impending execution and he nervously raised his hands in mock-surrender. "Okay, _okay_! So I got wings, like Kotex. But that doesn't make me any less right about Lucifer."

"He's lying," Kali said. "He's a spy."

"I'm not a spy. I'm a runaway. I'm trying to save you." He leaned forward, serious and intense. "I know my brother, Kali. He should scare the living crap out of you. You _can't _beat him. I've skipped ahead, seen how this story ends."

"_Your _story," Kali said, and there was a quiet anger underneath her placid exterior. "Not ours." She shook her head. "Westerners, I swear. The sheer_ arrogance_." She looked at Gabriel with loathing. "You think you're the only ones on earth? You pillage and you butcher in your god's name. But you're not the only religion, and he's _not _the only god. And now you think you can just rip the planet apart? You're wrong. There are _billions_ of us," she said, and she leaned closer to him. She still held his blade. "And we were here first. If anyone gets to end this world…" she put a seemingly tender hand against Gabriel's face, held his gaze. "It's _me_." The blade glinted as she moved it back slightly. Her voice and face softened inexplicably. "I'm sorry."

Gabriel's face filled with shocked betrayal as she stabbed him with his own sword—and maybe Alex imagined it, but it looked like the goddess had tears in her eyes. Gabriel screamed and blue light exploded from behind his eyes and out of his mouth, his entire body jolted, and he went limp, slumped in the chair. Dead.

The Winchesters looked at each other in doubled horror, realizing things were getting out of hand and _fast_.

"This is _crazy_…" Mercury said softly, even as the other gods looked on, seeming to be thinking the same thing.

Sam and Alex looked at Dean, who sat between them, freaking out—his knee was jumping up and down in nervous energy, his eyes were darting back and forth across the room. The twins looked at each other, and both of them had the same _we're screwed_ expression on their faces.

Kali straightened away from Gabriel's limp body, her expression like stone again. "They _can_ die," she said, and looked around the room meaningfully. "We can kill Lucifer."

Beside Alex, Dean stood up without warning. "All right you primitive screwheads, listen up."

In unison, Sam and Alex looked up at their big brother. "Are you _outta_ your _mind_?" Sam whispered. "Dean, _what are you_—" Alex started in a whisper through clenched teeth.

"I'm outta options," Dean cut her off, speaking low enough for only his brother and sister to hear. He looked at them both very briefly, as if to tell them_ just trust me on this one. _

Dean looked up at the gods who were all looking at him in distaste. He smiled cockily, took in a deep breath, began to talk in a confident, commanding voice as his siblings both watched with slack jaws, no idea what their big brother was up to.

"Now on any other given day, I'd be doing my damndest to, uh, kill you," Dean said to the gods, and he swaggered over a few steps to the right, looking the gods in the eye in turn, his demeanor filled with condescending smugness. "You filthy, murdering chumps," he added in for good measure and chuckled, turned on his heel, began to casually amble up toward where the drinks were. "But, uh, _hey,_ desperate times." He turned, swept the room with a cynical smile, being leisurely. Very angry faces stared back at him. "So even though I'd love nothing better than to slit your throats... you _dicks_…" he pointed at them with both index fingers like it was their lucky day. "I'm gonna _help you_!" He turned around, grabbed a decanter of some dark liquor, began to pour it even as the twins looked at each other in complete, utter bafflement. Alex shrunk down into her seat, wishing she could just disappear. Dean finished pouring his drink. "I'm going to _help you_ ice the devil." He turned around, liquor in hand, that false smile still plastered across his face. "And then we can all get back to ganking each other like normal. You want Lucifer, well, dude's not in the Yellow Pages. But me and Sam, we can get him here."

"_How_?" Kali challenged.

"First you let those main courses go," Dean told her. "Then we talk. We can either take on the devil together... or you lame-ass bitches can eat me." His smile wavered slightly. "Literally." He took a huge gulp of the dark liquid in his glass.

Kali looked at him closely, assessing him, trying to decide whether or not to do what he'd said. Finally, she smiled just slightly. "Fine," she consented. "I can always get more. Go let them out. But... your brother and sister stay with me."

Dean set his drink down, gave his brother and sister a _be cool _look, and marched out of the room, a man on a mission.

Kali watched him go, then turned and looked at Sam, her dark eyes not seeming to miss anything. Alex watched, out of the corner of her eye, as Mercury slunk out of the room, looking shaken up and shifty.

"So, Lucifer's vessel," Kali said, then her eyes slid over to look at Alex. "And the sister. We have no further use for you."

She raised her hand, snapped her fingers and Alex was gone.

* * *

In the lobby, a hand hit against the service bell, and Mercury turned around to greet the new guest—he was startled momentarily to see how fast his call had been answered.

"Checking in," said the newcomer. His face was worn, pale, peeling off in places.

Mercury smiled politely, but there was an apprehensiveness behind the expression. "Lucifer. Thanks for coming."

Lucifer smiled mildly. "Oh, you did right calling me."

"It's just…" Mercury looked to his side, speaking in a hushed tone. "The way the talk is heading in there, it's... it's _insane_." He chuckled nervously.

Lucifer smiled, looked down. "You know, I never understood you pagans, you're such…" he wrinkled his nose up, his smile became more of a loathing expression, "petty little things." Mercury's little smile fell in confusion as Lucifer continued. "Always fighting, always happy to sell out your own kind. No wonder you forfeited this planet to us." Lucifer pointed a finger at the god. "_You_ are worse than humans. You're worse than demons. And yet you claim to be gods." He smiled again as if in amusement, even as Mercury faltered, seeming to regret his choice to summon Lucifer. At the same moment that Mercury realized his mistake, Lucifer's smile faded, the finger he was pointing at Mercury twisted with sudden and violent speed. Mercury's neck snapped, he fell over dead before he even knew what had happened.

Lucifer looked down at the dead god apathetically. "And they call _me_ prideful."

* * *

In the elevator, the lights flickered, and Alex looked up, frowning. That was never a good sign. Impatient, she mentally urged the elevator to go faster, wished she'd taken the stairs. Kali had sent her away to a locked room on the top floor, but Alex had broken her way out, using a nightstand to destroy the door hinges enough that she could kick the door down—desperate times, desperate measures. She had no idea what she was going to do once she got downstairs again, but she _wasn't_ sitting this one out.

The elevator dinged pleasantly, the doors slid open, Alex stepped out and looked up—and was met with a horrifying sight. The hallway in front of the elevator was a bloodbath—dead gods lined the floor, their blood spattered the walls—and in front of her, as if he'd been waiting, Lucifer, covered in the blood of the ones he'd slain.

"Hello, Alex," he said pleasantly even as she stumbled back. The elevator doors had closed and her back pressed into them as she stared at him in horror. "It's been awhile," he remarked conversationally, looking at her with a soft, pleasant smile. "You been doing all right?" He looked even worse than he had last time she'd seen him, like he was diseased to his core. He took in her horrified expression.

"Is it my face?" he asked her in what seemed like genuine concern. "I know... it's a little frightful to look at. I promise you... I'm the same sweet-hearted guy deep down."

He cupped her chin in one of his bloody hands and she tensed, she thought of her angel blade. He was staring at her deeply, as if he could see her thoughts. "You look like there's something you're dying to ask me," he said softly, coaxingly. "...I'm an open book."

She found her voice, even though she could barely breathe, asked the first thing she could think of, even if it was just to buy time. "Are you here to take Sam?"

Lucifer smiled, his eyes crinkled up, he let go of her face and gave her an amused look. "Well he'd have to say yes for that to happen now wouldn't he?" He sighed, folded his arms in an effeminate way, a thoughtful finger on his chin. "I just don't know what I'll do if I can't get him to comply."

There was a note of implication in his voice that spurred Alex to look at him closely, and she thought of how Adam was now Michael's vessel… she swallowed, tried to remain detached and not let him see through her. "Is he... your only vessel?"

Satan almost smirked. "Why? Are you offering?"

"No, I—" Alex halted mid-sentence. She'd answered before she'd even heard his question. Her stomach churned. "Would that _work_?" she asked slowly.

Lucifer raised a single eyebrow, came a bit closer to her. Too close. "Would you like to try it and see?" he asked her teasingly, and his smile was unnerving. His eyes flickered up and down her inappropriately. "I'm not against... experimentation." He leaned a little closer to whisper in her ear. "But how would Castiel feel about another angel being inside of you?"

He drew back and chuckled at the look on her face. She was disturbed on every level, barely able to keep herself from shaking in the revulsion and anger she felt. And looking Satan in the eye, she saw how smug he looked, how sure of himself, and she felt herself getting brave and stupid. "I won't let you have Sam," she told him, some of her fire returning, some of her anger. "Not now, not _ever_."

She grabbed the hilt of the angel blade, but Lucifer's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist hard, painfully hard, stopping her. He looked at her cooly. "_Loyalty._ I can respect that. You love him very much." He seemed pleased, looked at her in a way that made her feel completely intimidated. "Enough to do anything for him, I'd imagine..." he smiled, his chapped, discolored lips stretching across his peeling face ghoulishly. His hand still held her wrist tightly. "I have a previous engagement—I think I'm being rude, keeping them waiting. Care to join me?"

Alex wasn't sure if it were a real question or not. "No, thank you."

Lucifer's head tilted slightly to the side, he looked at her in dark amusement. "I was just being polite, of course. I'm afraid I have to insist."

And never letting go of her wrist, Lucifer pulled her along with himself, down the hall, over the bloody ripped remains of three or four gods and goddesses. Alex cursed herself, knew she couldn't reach the handle with her left hand fast enough or well enough to have a chance to do what she'd wanted to do: stab him through the frigging heart.

Lucifer dragged her around a corner and into the grand ballroom, where four people turned to look at the newcomers.

"Alex!" Sam exclaimed in horrified surprise, moving toward her by instinct—but beside him Dean grabbed him by the jacket, rooting him to the spot.

Baldur and Kali stood together next to the brothers, looking shocked to see Lucifer, who smiled, an eerie effect. "Sam, Dean, good to see you again. Alex, dear, be a good little girl and go to your brothers. Go on."

She looked at him in disbelief—he was just… gonna let her go? He did just that, but before she could grab for her angel blade, she found herself sliding across the floor like she was on ice, bowling into Sam and Dean, who caught her, righted her. The three of them, grabbing onto each other, looked at the devil in disbelief.

He raised his arms slightly, cringed apologetically. "So sorry about the mess, everyone," he said, dusting his hands off for show.

Baldur's fury blazed on his face, and he stepped forward toward Lucifer even as Kali protested, told him "Baldur, don't."

He ignored her. "You think you own the planet?" He asked angrily. "What gives you the _right_?" He rushed toward Lucifer, who abruptly stabbed his arm and hand through Baldur completely. Gasping in shock and pain as he died, Baldur looked at Lucifer with wide eyes.

"No one _gives_ us the right, we_ take_ it," Lucifer murmured softly, and yanked his arm out of Baldur, threw him to the ground.

Enraged, Kali's stared at Lucifer as her arms suddenly bristled in flames. Lucifer smiled at her coyly, and she raised an arm, lobbed fire at him—and the Winchesters threw themselves over the edge of an overturned table for cover, as flames filled the room. Flames shot over their heads, blistering heat making it hard to breathe.

When the flames faded away, Lucifer smiled at Kali. He was unaffected. He advanced onto her, hit her, sent her flying. Above and behind the devil, part of the ceiling and wall had caught fire.

Behind the overturned table, Sam ducked his head back down, looked at his sister. "You okay?" he asked, and suddenly Gabriel appeared next to Dean.

"Not really," Gabriel said. "Better late then never, huh?" He slapped a Casa Erotica DVD up against Dean's chest. "Guard this with your life."

"How the hell are you alive?" Alex demanded, looking at the archangel in shock.

He smiled at her charmingly, shrugged humbly. "They don't call me the Trickster for nothin'!" He stood up, his angel blade in hand, and Lucifer, who was about to stomp on Kali, was blown back through the grand ballroom doors.

He collapsed down onto the ground, looked up at Gabriel, an unreadable expression upon his face. Gabriel stared at him challengingly, walking toward him and staring him down. "Lucy! I'm home."

Lucifer stood, rolled his neck, advanced into the room, and Gabriel held his blade high, stopping Lucifer in his tracks. "Not this time."

Realizing that his brother stood against him, Luciferfell back a little, his expression cold. Gabriel backed up, holding his blade high, offering his other hand to Kali, helping her up. "Guys!" Gabriel called, not taking his eyes off Lucifer. "Get her outta here."

Taking the cue, Sam, Dean, and Alex jumped up, hurried over. Dean grabbed onto Kali, escorting her out as Gabriel covered their exit. A few embers fell from the ceiling above. The fire Kali had started was spreading. "Over a _girl_," Lucifer commented lowly as Kali and the Winchesters disappeared through the ballroom door behind Gabriel, who blocked Lucifer from pursuing. "Gabriel, really? I mean I knew you were slumming, but…" Lucifer made a grossed out face. "I hope you didn't catch anything."

Gabriel smiled, shrugged. "Hey, I'm not the first angel to throw away it all for a girl, now am I," he replied, leveling his brother with a stilted smile. "Lucifer, you're my brother. And I love you. But you are a great big bag of dicks."

"What did you just say to me?" Lucifer asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Look at yourself! Boo _hoo_! Daddy was mean to me, so I'm gonna smash up all his toys," Gabriel said derisively.

"Watch your tone," Lucifer said softly, warningly.

Gabriel ignored his brother's command. "Play the victim all you want. But you and me? We know the truth. Dad loved you best. More than Michael, more than me. Then he brought the new baby home and you couldn't handle it. So this is all just one big temper tantrum." Gabriel's face grew serious, he pointed his blade at Lucifer. "Time to grow up."

Beside them, the wall was catching fire.

* * *

"We're just _leaving_?" Alex demanded, stopping just a few feet outside of the lobby doorway. Ahead of her, Dean, Sam and Kali stopped, turned around, looked at her. The Impala was a few feet off in the dark parking lot.

Dean seemed to think she was crazy. "Yes, what, you wanna hang around for_ happy hour _or something?! We gotta get out of here _now_."

Alex looked at him like_ he _was the crazy one and she pulled out Castiel's blade gestured to it. "Lucifer is in there right now, I have _this,_ we can _kill_ him!" she practically shouted.

"Uh, _no_, I don't think so, get in the car," Dean said, his tone indicating _that's final. _

She thought about it a second, turned back around, headed back toward the hotel. Behind her, Dean grabbed her by the jacket, whirled her around. "What the hell are you _doing_!?" he demanded, aghast at her behavior.

"I am gonna go in there and kill Lucifer!" she retorted angrily.

"It's _suicide_!" Dean almost shouted.

"I don't _care_!" she roared, pushing him, grabbing his arms roughly, fighting him, trying to get away. Out of nowhere, Kali reached out and touched Alex, who slumped forward in Dean's arms, unconscious. He looked at the goddess in a mixture of appreciation and disbelief.

She just gave him a contemptuous look. "Bitch at me later, let's _go_."

* * *

Inside the grand ballroom, embers fell down like lazy snow flurries and the two angels faced each other down. "Gabriel, if you're doing this for Michael…" Lucifer said in a gentle, reasoning tone.

"Screw him," Gabriel retorted. "If he were standing here, I'd shiv his ass too."

Dismay and then loathing filtered across Lucifer's face. "You _disloyal_—"

"Oh, I'm loyal," Gabriel said. "To them." "Who?" Lucifer questioned. "These so called _gods_?"

"To people, Lucifer. People."

Lucifer looked at his brother in disbelief. "_People_?" he asked, the word laced with disdain.

"Yes. Determined, stubborn, pain-in-the-ass, imperfect people." Gabriel spread his arms out a little. "The scenery around here is great, but human nature? Beats everything I've seen here or anywhere else."

Lucifer began to pace, slowly, back and forth in front of Gabriel. The fire was growing—three walls were licked by flames now, and the roof was beginning to char. Parts fell off onto the floor below. "So you're willing to _die_ for a pile of cockroaches," Lucifer said. "Why?" "Because Dad was right," Gabriel said. "They're better than us."

Lucifer took that as personal offense. "They are broken. Flawed! _Abortions." _He spat. "Our father _failed_ when he created humans." "Failed? No. Damn right they're flawed. But you know, that's what I_ like_," Gabriel said. "And a lot of them try. To do better, to forgive." A playful smirk played on his lips. "And you should see the Spearmint Rhino!" Lucifer was growing quiet, looking at his brother in utter devastation.

"I've been riding the pine a long time," Gabriel said. "But I'm in the game now, and I'm not on your side, or Michael's. I've decided I'm on theirs."

Lucifer shook his head, pained. "It's not too late," he told his brother softly. "If you can stop being such a nearsighted fool, you can join me. I'm going to win, Gabriel. You _know _I am. Be part of the new earth I'll create. Be part of the splendor of what's to come when I fix what our father destroyed."

Flippant, Gabriel made a face. "Mm, yeah, how about _no_."

Lucifer's expression was filled with pain, and around them, parts of the flaming ceiling began to fall more rapidly. "Brother, don't make me do this," Lucifer asked softly, a final chance for his brother. "No one makes _us_ do anything," was Gabriel's reply. Lucifer, knowing what was to come, knowing his brother's tricks and style, looked at Gabriel, dispirited. "I know you think you're doing the right thing, Gabriel… but I also know where your heart truly lies." He smiled sadly at his brother—and then whirled, catching Gabriel—the _real _Gabriel, who had been sneaking up behind him—by the wrist, stabbing Gabriel's blade down into his own chest.

"_Here," _Lucifer said, and Gabriel's expression was shocked, betrayed as he gasped in pain. Behind him, the illusion Gabriel had cast of himself disappeared, vanished into thin air. "Amateur hocus pocus," Lucifer whispered. "Don't forget, you learned all your tricks from me, little brother." He drove the blade as deep as it would go, and Gabriel screamed, exploded in blue light, fell down to the ground. Black wing marks spread across the ground that was littered with flaming debris.

Lucifer stood over Gabriel's body for a long moment, a bitter expression on his face. Around him, the room collapsed in parts, flames consuming the structure. Lucifer turned slightly toward the back of the room, addressed a corner that was covered by a thick, flaming partition. "You know, it's rude to stare," he said softly.

A tall, pale man with dark hair and fierce, brooding features came out from behind the flaming structure, looked at Lucifer without a word. He wore faded jeans, a black leather jacket, a hard to read expression.

"Hezion," Lucifer greeted. "The angel of shadows and night... are you here to try and kill me, too?"

Hezion came forward slowly, his eyes dropping to Gabriel and then coming back up to Lucifer. "No. I'm here to offer my services."

"Offer your services," Lucifer repeated. "It's kind of a bad time."

Hezion ignored the comment. "Michael's obtained a vessel, I'm sure you've heard." Lucifer just raised his eyebrows slightly, indicating Hezion get to his point. "Adam Milligan is small. Weak. Incapable. Against you, against Sam Winchester… he's sure to fail."

"The _point,_ Hezion."

Hezion's expression didn't waver. "I'm here to sign up for the winning team."

Lucifer looked at his much younger brother without bothering to hide his repugnance. "You've always been like this, Hezion. Disloyal, _apostate_." His lip curled up slightly. "Do you know how I find those qualities to be?"

"I'm not disloyal," Hezion said, matter-of-fact. "I'm like you. I'm _self_ loyal. I do what's best for me."

Lucifer looked him up and down. "And you think that siding with me, Heaven's number one enemy, is what's best for you."

"Yes. Because I know Michael doesn't stand a chance."

Lucifer looked at Hezion silently. The other angel was looking at him closely, taking in the peeling skin, the sores. "Your vessel is weak," Hezion said. "You're probably finding yourself a little incapable of doing things you really need done." He stepped closer, raised his chin slightly, his mouth curving upwards just slightly on one side. "I can help you get your true vessel, Lucifer. And in return, you'll give me a place in your new world."

His eyes narrowed slightly, and Lucifer almost smirked. "You're an odd one, Hezion. Always have been." Lucifer paused, thinking back. "Though I don't suppose you remember all of it... so many things_ do_ tend to get lost in the mix..."

Hezion's expression faltered slightly as if in puzzlement and Lucifer smiled elusively. "There_ is _something I need a little help with, actually," he said thoughtfully, then wagged his finger at Hezion with a small smile. "You might be just the angel for the job." He felt himself smiling slowly as he thought about it and looked at Hezion thoroughly. He didn't trust Hezion and he never would. But he wouldn't hesitate to _use_ him. Lucifer held out his cracked and peeling hand, indicating the other angel take it.

Hezion put his in, and the angels shook hands. Hezion's dark eyes met Lucifer's, and Lucifer smiled ominously. Around them, the grand ballroom began to collapse in flames, beams breaking in half and snapping like twigs. "It won't be long now," Lucifer said. "Not long at all."

* * *

As soon as his sister woke up again, Dean yanked the car over to the side of the road and he got out, pulled Alex's door open. "Get out, _now_!" he demanded of her. She looked at him hesitantly, but got out slowly. She looked like she was shutting down again from the weird way she moved, the way her eyes had dulled and lost their sparkle. Sam got out at the same time that she did and he was clearly worried and unsure what was happening. Kali sat still, watching silently.

"What the hell was that back there huh?!" Dean demanded, clearly scared and pissed alike. "You fucking _crazy_?!"

"I'm fine," Alex said hollowly, looking down at the ground, avoiding his gaze.

"_You_—are _not_—fine!" Dean bellowed, looking at her, his chest heaving in distress and anger. "I mean all the nuthouse crap you've been pulling this past month and then tonight you just decide to waltz in and_ kill the devil,_ get yourself _killed?_ Have you _lost _your _mind_?" He stared her down, emphasized his words with his hands. He wet his lips, attempting to calm himself. He was angry, but he attempted to speak to her understandingly. "Listen, if this is about Cas—"

A switch flipped at the mention of Cas, total enraged grief suddenly struck Alex's features like lightning. "_Cas isn't coming back_!" She practically screamed. "Stop_ telling me he is_!" And there it was: all of the horrified grief and fear and sadness that she'd been hiding or maybe pushing away for the past four weeks—it was written across her face clearly. She was shaking badly. Sam now stood beside Dean, and Alex looked between both of them with shining, tear-filled eyes. "I am _not _letting either of_ you_ get taken from me, ever!" she raged, seeming to be overwhelmed to the point of near insanity. "If I have to die trying to save you I don't care! I can't _live like this_ anymore, do you understand?!"

She hit the side of the Impala with the palm of her hand, teeth gritted, pained tears leaking out of her eyes, and a wretched sob tore out of her throat. "He's dead," she said, and shook her head, looked down, shoulders slumped in defeat. A hand came up to cover her face. "He's _dead_." She practically wailed at that point in painful misery, and Dean moved toward her, attempting to comfort her, but she reacted like an angry, caged animal, shoved him away. "Get _away_ from me!"

The brothers looked at each other briefly, neither knowing what to do. She looked like she were in physical pain, she wrapped her arms around her middle and bent forward—and she was pitiful, helpless. She choked on her sobs, groaning as she screwed her eyes shut and took horrible quaking breaths. "It hurts, it _hurts_, it fucking hurts so bad I can't breathe or think anymore!" She shrank back against the Impala, and she didn't seem to see them or anything else, she just stared blank and unblinking with wide eyes at somewhere near Sam and Dean's knees. Her voice had gone faint. "I am in _hell _every day and I can't look at myself in the mirror, I can't stand the things I think," her voice suddenly raised to a panicked shout and she looked at them, her expression screaming for help—"I _can't_ _DO THIS anymore_!"

Sam tried reaching out for her arm but she yanked herself out of the range of his grasp, backing up, shaking her head, eyes squeezed shut again, sobs wracking her body. She was becoming hysterical. "It's too much, it's _too much_! All of it!" She looked up at them, and her expression was full of some ominous quality, like she was about to do something crazy—she seemed livid on a level they'd never seen. "I don't _want _this!"

And with a shriek of rage or grief, it was hard to tell which, she threw herself down to the ground. Blind to everything except the red she was seeing, Alex wildly bashed one of her fists into the pavement repeatedly, screaming in pain and anger alike even as her brothers sprung forward and grabbed her up, struggled to physically restrain her.

Her screaming sobs echoed through the foggy night.

* * *

**At That Same Moment, Saint Bernard Parish Hospital**

**Chalmette, Louisana**

_It was dark. There was nothing but endless drifting. _

_But he was aware of himself again. And aware of something else, too. It wasn't physical pain that he sensed, it was despair and hopelessness screaming through the thick silence. And somehow he knew it was _hers_. Immediately, he tried to reach up, to pull himself out of the darkness and to her, but he was unable._

_He fought harder, panic squeezing a fist around him—he needed to wake up _now._ He was needed, and he knew it—and nothing was more important in the universe than rising out of the darkness and finding her... but his will was overpowered by his body which was weak, powerless. _

_And there was a vague memory of her hand beside his, and he tried to reach out and take it, because maybe if he could do that he could reach her. But he felt darkness darker than night closing in again, and even though he resisted, he still faded out, slipped away into the place where he had no thoughts at all. _

Nurse Katie Cooper paused, squinting at the vitals monitor—she thought she'd heard a sound indicating a spike. Sure enough, brain activity was up—_way_ up. John Doe's finger twitched, his eyebrows moved together for a second—a worried kind of expression. And just as quickly as it had happened, it ceased. The brain activity died down again, his face went still and calm.

Katie's shoulders sank down from where she didn't realize she'd been holding them. For a second, she thought the guy was going to come out of the coma.

She sighed softly, looked at him sadly.

Not yet.

* * *

_Author's Notes:__ I can't believe how fast I wrote this chapter…? TWO DAYS? Wtf well... someone give me a cookie! Anyway, WAH. This was a dense chapter! Some parts were fun, some parts were horrible, some parts were WORSE THAN HORRIBLE UGH gaaaahhhhhhh. Sorry about all the pain (not really; I live for pain). More pain ahead too haaa haa *falls over and dies*_

_Do you guys realize we are so, so, so close to the season five finale? And with it, some huge twists and turns and revelations… I'm sweating bullets of excitement and fear alike. ALSO REMEMBER HOW I SAID MORE PAIN AHEAD WELL UM YEAH THAT. _

_Can I just say… you readers just make my day. Knowing there are some other people out there who like the story within the story of Supernatural I'm writing is so cool. I appreciate and value every single review, email, tumblr comment/ask, private message, follow, favorite… ALL OF IT. You guys kick almost as much ass as the Winchesters. Thanks for the love and support! _


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